


Like real people do

by jinyoungsmeat



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Betrayal, Doc!Youngjae, Emotional Hurt, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Smut, Jackson Wang make Mark Tuan happy and Choi Youngjae sad, Jealousy, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sexual Tension, Silly Mark, Smut, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-04-29 19:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinyoungsmeat/pseuds/jinyoungsmeat
Summary: Passion. Passion which makes heart beat faster, which makes the hands sweat, makes the pupils dilate and provoke involuntary smiles. Passion is always the answer and also always the problem, always.When two people fall in love, their brains suffer chemical transformations, there are explosions in their bodies that carry dopamine through their veins, which pumps their hearts and elevate them to a state of euphoria. It's like a drug, you get addicted and when you realize, it's too late, it's too painful and suffocating. It's passion.When two people fall in love, they believe they will be happy forever, but when the effect of the drug disappears into the human organism, all that remains is the certainty that "it’s complicated". And then, in the midst of addiction and complication, only the passion remains, which ends.Sometimes it ends.(or where Mark falls in love with someone who's not Youngjae)





	1. this is our beginning

**Author's Note:**

> So yeeah hi its me again hahah I already published this fanfic in portuguese but I had started to do in eng and decided to risk it. I'm publishing more to me than to have comments or something, because I like to write and I didn't want to leave this fluffy thing dusty. Anyway, if anyone reads, I hope you like it. And sorry for my bad eng hahah I'm from Brazil so... hahah
> 
> AND this is something important, this fanfic was based on the movie 500 days with Summer, so you have an idea of the days jumping to the present and to the past.
> 
> This fanfic appeared after a request from a friend on Twitter, who wanted to read a oneshot MarkJae — "with top!Mark for god's sake", she said — and long conversations about broken hearts, Hozier and many hours watching a brazilian LGBT movie calls "Hoje eu não quero voltar sozinho".
> 
> And I have a trailer hahah you can see it on the canal SantVids. Rr by the link beside [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTLhoThoiB8]

**  
DAY 1450**

__

Life is complicated. I discovered this too late, when I was filled with the things I thought I could have forever. When I realized that nothing stays forever, I was overflowing, I was seeing everything I thought was mine forever slowly run away, out of me. For eighteen blocks of me, for other arms.  


At first, when the last drop drops and you feel everything that fills you with emptiness, you believe that you will never feel whole again, that nothing else will fill you and that will always be empty and sore. But it's not true. It's true that life is complicated, that things and people are complicated and not always stay forever, but it is not true that the emptiness limit the pain, that it is bound to the bad ghosts and the feeling of abandonment. 

Well, he's following you for all your life, I know that — I feel like I will feel my emptiness with me until the moment I go to the underworld, when everything is white — but it doesn't mean that it's going to hurt forever, or that it will always remind you of the bad times, the tears.

Believe in me, I know you won't. I know it doesn't hurt because it's a bad thing, it's not a dark abyss with sad memories that are waiting to be looked back. Life is complicated, people and things are complicated. Sometimes things stay forever, sometimes they go away because “it's fucking exhausting to love you”, “it's fucking exhausting being here”, but you learn to live with it, with the complicated and the emptiness. I've learned.

I survived the fucking love — or maybe should I say: I survived the passion, the drug that is guilty for at least 40% of the deaths worldwide. 

Of course, now it's not like when life was simple, because when it was simple, there was no 40% of deaths by passion, there were no empties and people overflowing their favorite things out, there were only smiles and the drug effect that left people crazy in the first experience — because despite killing 40% of the population, even though it was addictive and becoming a fool being in love was better than nothing, because everything seemed simpler. I know that real people heal gradually, over time, with 1450 days. 

"YoungJae-ya?!" Chaewon smile, rocking her hands in front of my face. I lift my eyebrows, and I pull the headphones to hear her. "Oh, you were making _that_ face again Youngjae", she complains, and without realizing it recreates the face I was doing again, what makes me laugh. Kim Chaewon is my best friend. We met last year of college when she was almost flunking and I helped her. Now we don't leave each other. "Wake up!" 

Chaewon was always with me. We went to work together, we went home together, we were lunch together in the hospital cafeteria, and when we weren't working, we'd spend even more time together. She was a good friend in the bad years, when everything seemed to collapse, when even Jaebum couldn't cheer me up. I like being around her, when we're together I feel like everything can be overcome and with her I'm always smiling. She was clumsy and she was an annoying child, but still, it was a star full of light, a happy virus which infected everything and everyone, she made empty spaces overflow. I shake your hand against mine, and she stares at me, confused.

"Oh, I know what it is! You're depressed’cause your point has arrived." Chaewon snapped her tongue in the sky of her mouth, making me roll my eyes. "I know you'll miss me, oppa."

I squeeze my eyes. Besides hindered, she was an annoying child, since she knew how much I hated being called “oppa”. I show her the tip of my tongue, and she laughs. 

"How did you know that, Chaewonie?!" I squint my eyes. "You're so clever! You should invest in the mind reader career" I say with false excitement, lifting me up. "You're very smart."

"All right oppa, you can pretend you don't get sad every time you have to let me go, it's okay, really." Chaewon shake his shoulders, and take the place that was mine seconds ago. "Just believe what I say..." she stretches her neck, and puts her hands beside her lips. "you'll be able to survive without me, Choi YoungJae, I promise, you will."

I come down, waving to Chaewon, while I take the keys — the bus stop is in front of my apartment, which is by far one of the reasons why I keep living there.

When I finally I finally back up against the cold wall of the elevator, which slowly rises up to the tenth floor, I check my messages and my notes for the next day.

I am tired. I had have a tiring day at the hospital and, despite being full of files to put on day and ideas for new treatment strategies, all I wanted most was to be able to lay in my bed and sleep until the next day. I rub my hand on my neck.

Jaebum, my best friend — I hope Chaewon never hearing me say that — and person I share my drama with and my bills, says to doctor a living in pain. _It's neck pain, leg, hand, eye... At any moment there will be pain in the soul, YoungJae_ , that's what he said. And I thought it was funny, because I am a therapeutic musician physician, use the music to help in reducing pain, to help children with low levels of deafness, with special children, I’m always surrounded by people who need music as medicine, and still, I live in pain. Jaebum would, once again, laugh at me and my neck pain.

I push the door, ready to shout my famous "honey, I'm home!" but unlike the other times, JB wasn’t dumped on our couch, watching TV — pretending to watch TV to be more accurate, since he was always sleeping — this time, he was standing in front of the door, like he was waiting for me a long time ago. I set the keys on the balcony. 

He frightened eyes stare at me, and face the paper in him hands.

"Jaebeomie?"

"Do you already know?" his voice sounds profound and harsh. I separate my lips, and raise my hands to his forehead, ready to check his temperature. He was sick when he left home earlier. "YoungJae!" JB yells, hitting my hand, making me face him ugly. "They're getting married."

Jaebum had a fever when I left him in the morning, he had the red eyes and the skin too hot, I gave him a remedy and put him to sleep. Now, standing in front of me with a beige card on his hands, he looked healthy again, and I was the one who was burning. I grab the card from his hands, feeling something that I believed I had drained out of me, my heart hammering on my chest. I can't breathe.

If we could have ripped souls like we ripped roles, I'd be in the world as an empty shell, because mine — my poor soul among the 40% of the addicts still in love — was, after a long time, departure in two.

Jaebum yells my name when I finally reach the doorknob and go out, he yells for me to stop running, for me I think and remember that I was cured, but it's impossible. It was impossible because I wasn't cured. I knew it, just like I knew life was complicated, and that real people don't always heal completely over time. 

**DAY 01**

Look at him was heartwarming like a sunny day. I don't know why, maybe I was too bored and thought it was interesting to look at people, and in the midst of people, it was interesting and good to look at him and its clear blonde hair.  


He was peaceful, silent. I realized that the first time I saw him, behind the pharmacy building, playing basketball.  
I was out of my patience and I wanted to walk through the university, and I wanted to sit in a shade and take my juice without having to look at the face of the scenography teacher.  


That day was sunny, and he was enjoying himself, playing basketball, barefoot and shirtless, mute to the world and maybe even to him while the ball was tossed into the basket, scoring three points, and removing a happy smile from his lips. And, fuck, he was beautiful to death.  


"How much longer are you going to be staring at him from afar?" the loud noises and the voices have polluted my mind again. I gasp, rolling my eyes. "It's been… What?! A couple of two months??! "YuGyeom complains, making me roll my eyes again and lay my chin on my hands. "Don't you think it's time for you to go talk to him instead of staring at him like you're in an art exhibition?" her ask, peeling an egg with his agile hands. "People are already talking, you know that right?"  
I snitch. _Yes, I knew that_.  


"Hmmm." "A girl came to ask me if you were gay." he laughs. "Can you believe this stupid question?!!"  
"And what did you tell her?"  


" _Fuck_ , I told her it was the dumbest question in the whole world. I mean, isn’t that obvious yet?!" he ask. "Anyway, she basically said you need to stop drooling on the new guy, because he's not a piece of meat." YuGyeom rolls his eyes. "Okay, like she owned him and could tell who can or can't look at him, right? So I politely asked her to pick up rocks on the moon, because you, my friend, can drool on whomever you wants."  


We laugh, and two girls at the table next door look at us with ugly faces, which makes us laugh more.  
As I had said, look at him was heartwarming, in him peaceful and quiet way, his blond hair and his singing smile when something interested him in some stranger book he brought with him, it made my eyes never leave him.  


It made many eyes follow him up and down, and it’s not just that, I have a second reason I never tried to talk to him. I bite my lips, and I look at YuGyeom.  


"What if he's one of those heteros fleeing from gays in the worst possible way, of the kind, being ignorant and violent?!" I ask in a whisper, so no one else can hears us. I had no problem with my sexual orientation, I wasn't even afraid to be reprimanded by someone from college, but I didn't want to be rejected in the middle of the cafeteria again.  


"Serious?" YuGyeom mumbles, squeezing his eyes. "Is that why you haven't been talking to him yet? Why are you still thinking about that idiot that hurt you?" he sounds upset. I nodding, biting my bottom lip. "Choi YoungJae!" he yells, making some people look at us. I grab his wrists, make him sit down. I lay my head in my arms, and hide my red face. "People aren’t equal, hyung."  


"Keep your voice down, please." I whispered, without raising my head.  


"All right." YuGyeom says with his deep voice. His sudden silence disturbs me, and I am obliged to raise my head. "Now that you're looking in my eyes I can say this: if you keep thinking about something that happened almost two years ago, you're never going to have a love life again. People aren’t the same, you better than anyone knows that, even because it was you who told me that." he chatty, shaking his hands. "Can he be hetero? Yes, he can. Maybe he is... There is a possibility of 90% of it being hetero, but those 10% gay I see emanating from it are sufficient for you to take courage and..."  


"10%? Really Yugyeom?" I shook my head. "You really cheer me up now."  


"Whatever man. — the boy with black hair complains, grabbing my cheeks. — The fact is, there's a possibility that he's hetero, but that doesn't stop you from being his friend or anything like that, hyung. And there's the possibility that he's **super** gay and you get someone to kiss today.  


— Sometimes I wonder “what will be the mental problem of Kim YuGyeom?”  


— Okay, if you don't go there, I will. — he complains, angry. I squeeze my eyes. — You have five seconds to recompose and act as Choi YoungJae that goes up to the thing/person who wants it and gets it for you, or I’ll go there and I'll call him out.  


"You wouldn't have the guts." I laugh, but he doesn't laugh back. "I mean... You are you."  


"Four, three..." He gets up, making me stand up too.  


We're childish. We were in college, anytime we're getting our first jobs, but we have fears like "he's not gay," and we act like gamblers "if you don't go, I will." We're two kids, one afraid to talk to another guy because he can reject him, another one because he's pushing his friend to do something idiot.  


**ONE**. I sit in the empty chair. I don't know if people could hear the sound of my heart, I don't know if he could hear the sound of my heart, but I cam, and he was going crazy.  


Looking at him was comforting. I don't know why, maybe it was my two-month boredom, or his blond hair, his scarred jaw, his thin red lips. Maybe it was because of his brown eyes fixed on mine. I separate my lips.  


"Hi." he says. Looking at him was good, maybe it was because of the sound of his voice.  


"Hi." I whisper, and my heart stop. "I'm sorry for sat down like this, but I always... I always see you here, alone. I thought you might like some company today. My mother always says that no one should be alone in such a crowded world."  


He smiles, squeezing his eyes and wrinkling his eyebrows. Looking at him closely was soothing, because he was peaceful and silent, because his eyes were deep brown and his smile was big and beautiful. He was beautiful, like art.  


"I'm Choi YoungJae." I say, extending my hand. When he brown eyes break the contact with mine, I feel my heart beating again and my body cools. I loosen my breath between my lips, and I secretly wish that he would look at me again, but he just sees my serious hand. The cover of the book closes with a calm sound, revealing the name drawing on it on a whim, and when his hot fingers touch mine, I know I'm not dreaming like the other times. He eyes squeeze when he smile opens once again, and I shake our hands, laughing for some unknown reason. He was peaceful and quiet, I realized that the first day I saw him, and today, the first time we gave him his hands and he said nothing. I shake my shoulders, and I bite my bottom lip again. "And you're Mark Tuan right?"

**D A Y 35**

He's smiling, handsome, silent. I know that he have hoarse voice, because I still hear the sound of the few words exchanged, I know that he laughter is funny because it is always present when we "talk". I know I didn't look at him ‘cause I’m bored, because it had been 35 days since the first time we spoke, and yet I like to look at him.  
Mark is very quiet. The people around us say that he is mute or that he doesn’t speak because he has nothing in his mind to be told, but I know that it isn’t true, that perhaps he has much more than he imagines to speak, but he’s afraid of it. He's afraid to say something wrong, he's afraid of how people can interpret him, he's afraid of offending someone with his words. And though I like the sound of he voice, I understand and I like the silence.  


We talked a lot by message, he is the king of the chat, was always sending something funny to me or to Yugyeom — because, at least in college, he had just the two of us to talk about he’s life — so it was easy to find out little details about him, like for example, the fact that he was in Korea only two years ago.  


Mark Tuan is an American, has two older sisters and a younger brother, two nieces and parents who love him unconditionally. He likes basketball, animals, loves any kind of food that can be bought on the planet, has a scar on his right hand and doesn’t speak korean very well. The latter, the not speaking very well our language, is that prevents him from speaking.  


That's how I approached him. Yugyeom says I was sneaky and smart, that I used his lack of practice in korean to spend more time with him, and it was true. I had done it, because I liked to be with him. I liked the sound of he’s voice.  


"Okay" I sigh closing the book. "I think you've studied a lot for today."  


" _Ne!"_ Mark smiles and clenches his teeth against his lips. I hate him. Looking at him was bad, it was distressing and it made my stomach ache. Her brown eyes, her red lips and too thin against her clenched teeth, her perfect smile and her blonde hair. Everything about him drives me crazy and I hated him for it. I hated it especially when he was playing sexy without realizing it, not knowing what it was doing to me. "Youngjae-ya?"  


"What?!" I yelled, making hes eyes grow up. I clench my lips and face the white table. I don't hate him, I hate myself. I hate myself for liking to look at him, for having me sitting at his desk when Yugyeom challenged me, for putting my number on his phone and for not having the courage to ask once and for all _you’re gay or are you just trying to mess with head for fun Mark?_. "Yes, Mark? What is it?"  


"Nothing. I-I just-I asked if you... "he rummages through his hair countless times. "If you..."

"If I...?" _Don't force him to talk, if he can't express himself very well, give the boy a break Youngjae, he's new in Korean language_. YuGyeom's voice sounds in my head too late. I press my fingers against the palms of my hands and I smile for him to proceed.  


"Nothing, it was nothing." Mark whispers, shrugging. "Just... Thank you. For the classes."  


"Oh, it's okay." the third-period sign knocks, making me thanks for the break. I like being with him, but I don't like the frustrated feeling that it causes me. 35 days had passed, I helped him with korean every day at lunch and yet I still had no idea about his sexual orientation. He didn't need to talk to be good with boys and girls, I realized that the day I caught him laughing with some girls from the first semester, and then when I saw him cuddle with a boy I didn't know. Yugyeom keeps saying: _what matters is the 10% gay soul I see emanating from him_ and that's the only hope I have left. "I need to go to class."  


" _Jalga!"_ the excitement in he’s voice makes me growl.  


"Bye Mark."  


Maybe I'm angry that he didn't make it easy for me, maybe it's because I'm desperate for him to stop biting his lips whenever he's talking to me and let me do it in his place, maybe it's because I saw him with the white-haired boy a few days ago in the back building where he used to play basketball. They were too close, Mark had his big hand in the back of the skinny boy and his smile was by far the happiest I had ever seen. They seemed close, too close and it made me angry. I was also angry at Park Sun Young, who was always on top of him, and that he didn't scold him for it. Anger, anger, anger, anger. He only makes me angry.  


"Choi Youngjae!" Park Jin Young, a boy who used to take the same theater classes and improvisation with me, yelled, kneeling to get his stuff off the floor. I shake my hands over my head and swear a bad word, bending over to help him. "Where's your head, boy?" he wanted to know. "You lives in the moon world don’t you? Look where you're going, please".  


"I'm sorry Jinyoung sunbaenim." I sigh, lifting me up and delivering some pink leaves to him, which clings to them with sawed-off eyes and cracked teeth. He was always so intense and angry. Maybe I'll be like this when I'm around Mark, with my eyes sawed off and the jaw line tensioned. I shake my eyes, analyzing the expression of Park Jin Young, who calls me crazy and moves away, carrying his perfume away.  


My mother was right when she said that people interested in other people act like complete psychopaths, irrational madmen. Not that I was on all fours for Mark Tuan, I was just unsatisfied with the fact that I couldn't get anything out that could indicate the right way to him. Yugyeom says I'm interested because my ego is inflated, because I'm used to having everything easy, because I just need a Friday night in some nightclub to win my week, but I disagree. I'm not upset because he's being hard to decipher or anything like, just... Well, I'm just annoyed. Annoyed by nothing.  


When the teacher finally releases us, 13min before the right hour, I breathe relieved. I was tired, angry, hungry and sleepy. All I wanted was my bed.  


"Did you know?!" Kim Yugyeom, one of my best friends, screams as soon as we bump into each other in the hallway. I deny it with my head. "Mark Tuan was invited to Sun Young's party this saturday." I keep staring at him like I didn't understand or as someone who wasn't really into what he had to say. Which was a far-off lie. I had spent 35 days trying hard to get some time with Mark, to better understand the quiet kid and what little I got were a few things about his private life and messages. Park Sun Young, who had a big "bitch" in hers name, in less than a week managed to get him to go to his party. Party that everyone knew would end with her having sex with someone. Fuck her! "Youngjae hyung?"  


"Ya!"I yelled too high, nearing Sun Young who was leaning over Mark's shoulders like a cat. "Excuse me…" I smile, grabbing the boy with blond hair by he wrist. Yugyeom, who runs right behind us, laughs loud enough that I can hear him, or rather, so that Sun Young can hear him mock her.  


"Youngjae..." Mark say my name in his hoarse. "Are you okay?"  


"Yes, yes, yes" I nod breathing heavily. Mark Tuan's brown eyes tightened slowly as his smile opened for me. He was always smiling to me. "I want to ask you something." Mark nod for me to continue. I bite my cheeks. "Oh, Ah-I want… ah…" I look at Yuggie, who lifts his thumbs, encouraging me. 'Will-"  


"Mark oppa!" I hear Sun Young’s voice yelled. _She won't give up!_ I think.  
"Do you want to come to my house on saturday?" I say quickle, before she gets any closer. That's not what I meant to ask. "I mean, me and some friends are going to play some games an I thought you could go, since you like video game, like it would be a great-"  


"Yes. Of course I want." he answer before I finish quoting my list of a thousand reasons why he would go would be good. "What time?" he ask, passing he’s hands on he’s dyed light hair, making them fall slowly over he forehead. "And what's your address?"  


"Serious?" me eye popping. But before he can really confirm, Sun Young comes up with his fake smile "What do you want Sun Young?!"  


"Aish, put the ball down homo, I'm not here to talk to you." the girl smiles at Mark, who clenches her lips and "half" that settles. "Oppa, you didn't answer me if you're going or not".  


_Oppa, you didn't answer me if you're going or not._ I mentallyimitate her, rolling my shoulders and making them dance. Yugyeom grabs them hard, stopping me from embarrassment and smiles. I cross my arms and I bite my tongue.  


"Oh I forgot about that…" he admits, still stirring his hair. "I know you expected me to be, I mean, I have to make more friends and a party would help and a lot" I hate Mark Tuan and the happy way he smiles at Park Sun Young. I press my fingers against the soft cloth of my blouse. "but Youngjae had already asked me to do something with him on saturday. We're going to play video games." the blond-haired boy smiles, turning to me when he touches my shoulder. "Isn't it right Youngjae?"  


"Ah..." I nod. "Yes." I smile, biting my lips. "We're going to play video games."  


"But..."

"I'm sorry, but I had a deal with him first." I love Mark Tuan and the way he makes my skin crawl. Sun Young separates the thick lips to probably complain about he’s decision, but he just shakes his hand to it, stop her and grabs a piece of paper in the backpack. "Can you write your address for me?" he asks me, extending the paper and the pen. "I'd love to come to your house on saturday". 

****

**Day 132**

If there was a way to go back in time, for when you were still looking from afar in your eternal silence, you wouldn’t believe a word that my future me would tell. If I told myself "you're going to kiss him in a few weeks" or "you'll be happy together even on a bad day," I wouldn't believe a word, because I could never imagine that day, the first day we talked in the cafeteria and traded our numbers would bring me to this moment. I couldn't believe that the threat of Kim Yugyeom would bring me to Mark Tuan's bed, where I now know that I belong, would never believe that a simple saturday would give me the best person in the whole world. Nothing I could say would make me believe that one day I'd be Mark Tuan's boyfriend.  


"Do you remember the first time we spoke?" I ask, laying my head on his sweaty chest, listening to his heart. — Do you remember how scared you looked? Because I do. I remember.  


"And what do you remember from that day?"  


"I remember seeing you long before, in your first week at Seokyeong, behind the building playing basketball, alone" I look him in the eyes. "I also remember having followed you with my eyes for almost two whole months and having heard Yugyeom and Jaebeomie complaining about me being a sissy for not going to talk to you once." Mark has his eyes fixed on me and the expression that screams “don't call him Jaebeomie”. But I laugh and ignore it. "I remember Yugyeom having challenged me, and then, when I realized, we were talking. I mean, I was".  


" _Silent as a prince made of marble._ " Mark imitates Yugyeom’s voice, which makes me laugh. "That's what he called me, because of you, I think." he laughs, kissing the top of my head. "Know what I remember that first time?" he ask without distancing he lips of the place that had given me kisses. "I remember how nervous I was, because I'd seen him looking at me and I didn't know how to talk to you. My heart was racing when I said hi and when you put your number on my phone and took a photo to save it, I have to admit, it was daring and different, it’s made me want to know more about you."  


"About me or about how far my boldness was going?"  


"Both." he admitted it, squeezing me in he’s warm arms. I close my eyes. No. I couldn't believe my own now if he could go back in time and tell me everything he'd accomplished in less than four months. I wouldn't believe that Mark Tuan would give me a ring with the name forever engraved on it, I wouldn't believe that we would be in my bed, hugged after made love, much less believe that we had become so one another in such a short time. "But seriously Youngjae, I remember how I found you funny and beautiful, sincere and so fucking hot..." he sly voice and your warm breath on my neck makes me moan. "I remember how much I wanted to kiss you that saturday."  


"All right, I forgive you for being the biggest unknown of my life" I say, moving in his grip, climbing the body to reach his lips. "and for not kissing me."  


Mark smiles, grabbing my face and kissing me slowly, without that fuss a few minutes ago. He's beautiful, peaceful, silent, a marble prince. And now he's mine.  


"I promise to make up for it" he voice sounds serious and sexy. I like him. It wasn't boredom or bruised ego, there was no need to fuck or tantrum because everyone wanted it. I liked him. Or rather, I loved him in all his quiet and peaceful beauty. I, Choi Youngjae liked to look at Mark Tuan from the first day I saw him behind the building playing basketball, because I loved him. I fucking loved him. "Every day as long as we live. _I promise you that."_


	2. he asked me out on a date

**Day 730**

I've always wanted to make music. Okay, not always — sometime I wanted to be a math teacher, I wanted to be a film director, I wanted to be a lot of things — but after my fifteen years, when my father took me to a hospital to visit sick children, I knew that making music was what I wanted to do because some songs made people forget about their problems. My father's music made the sick children in the hospital forget their problems and smile. So that's what I would do, it would take more smiles for people who needed to forget their problems and pain. I supported that dream for many years  


Every day since I was fifteen I asked God to help me do that, make help me make music for other people, but unfortunately my life didn’t follow the right path.  


I mean, at least not for a while. I grew up and tried in every way, but for a while it seemed like the idea of making music would be nothing but a silly idea of a forgotten boy in his fifteen years old full of dreams. This happened because life is not easy, dreams don’t always come true when we are waiting, and then we fail. 

I failed for some time, and although it was disappointing, sad and desperate to see everything I wanted to fall apart, it was in the midst of the failure that I knew.  
Things didn't turn out like my fifteen year old wanted, I didn't get into a music college, I didn't specialize in hospital therapy and I didn't start working like I wanted to, but at least I knew him. Not that knowing someone would change the fact that my whole future had gone the other way or that I believed that it would be enough to occupy the empty space of the dream trampled on my chest, far from it. I knew that no one could supply the need for my dream, not by being incapable, but people do not enter into the lives of others to serve as a bandage or steppe.

Despite knowing that people aren’t bandages, he made me happy, and this happiness filled me with life and begged me to try again. I didn't try. Not when my heart was full, not when he made me smile and warmed me at night, not when love still existed.  


His existence in my life opened a second hole in my chest, and it was because of this hole, it was because of this pain that I gave myself another chance. It was what really boosted me, a broken heart, not the peaceful boy with the blond hair and the beautiful smile illuminating my sad days, but a heart twice wounded, tired of waiting for things to get better.

Twelve months after my heart broke I left Korea. And no, it wasn't the kid's fault with the blond hair, it was because it was the right thing to do. It was because the smiling fifteen-year-old boy with the children in a hospital room was still alive inside me, and he still wanted to be a musician who took smiles where there were almost always tears.  
"Youngjae!" Alex, my classmate, shouts my name from across the room. I smile, and I walk towards you, sitting next to you. "Are you okay? Ready for our graduation ceremony?"  


"We're not forming Alex, you know that." I grumbling. "They will only give us a certificate saying that we have completed the nine semesters of experience.  


"And then we can start our specialization wherever we want, without having to attend classes every day and we can get a job because we will have a piece of paper in our hands that proves that we are fit for the job market." the red-haired boy squints, clearly mocking me. "That is, a college degree, which will be delivered at a party in front of the whole college".  


"Okay, okay you showed your point, Alex. It's a graduation ceremony."  


"Thank you." he shakes his hair, making me laugh again. 

Twelve months after I got it all ripped out of my hands, I signed up for an exchange program in the United States. I once made plans to live in Texas, build a family and have a cozy home, so when the opportunity arose, I didn't think it would be any different than what I had dreamed of before. I just wouldn't have a family and a cozy house.  


It was the best and worst choice I ever made in my life. The best because I was able to enter the program of musician therapy, because I learned a new language as I always wanted, because I met a new culture and people like Alex. Worse because I was the only Korean guy in my class and I couldn't speak english in the first ten months, because for a long time, being there seemed insufficient and hopeless. But contrary to what everyone said, it was only for a while.  


"Did you get the message I left on the table?" Alex wasn't just my classmate, he also shared the room with me. I nod no, biting the tip of my nail. "A guy called you when he was in the library. I took the note and left it on your desk."  


"What guy?"  


"Yug... Oh, Yug-something." Alex shrugs. "He said you needed to check your facebook as soon as possible. Something like _tell him that M is with J in Africa_ and-Jae?!"  


"Tell the teacher I'm late Alex." I shout out the door. "I need to check something."  


"They are announcing the graduates in 15 minutes!" my friend yells back, but I ignore him.  


When I was a child my mother told me that in certain moments of life, when we think everything is going well and that nothing can reach us, things tend to crumble to be erected more carefully and cautiously. I was seven years old when I heard her say it for the first time, and almost twenty-one when I heard her speak for the last. It was two years ago, when I was happy and suddenly everything had collapsed. When I came to the United States I believed that the blocks that had detached from me when I passed through the storm that cut my chest were in their places, trapped with enough force not to be shaken if there was another storm in my chest. I thought everything was fine because I was smiling, I was happy and I didn't think about it, I really believed it, until five minutes ago.  


As soon as I enter the room, I look for the notebook that had left on the bed before leaving for the ceremony, and I hit my feet on the ground hoping that the password loading will go faster. While the Google page opens and I hit the letter F of the keyboard, I check my messages - something I hadn't done - and I'm amazed I didn't get anything from Jaebeomie. The page finally loads, and even though my whole body is screaming **don't do it** , my fingers move in a hurry on the keyboard: MARK TUAN > **search**.  


It's been two years, fourteen days, 21 hours and 12 minutes, but still, seeing him with his perfect smile and his peaceful gaze next to another guy keeps hurting like it hurt the first day I saw them together at that damn festival. It still hurts, a lot.  


**Status: Africa wouldn't be so much fun if I didn't have you next to me, 사랑해.**

  
A long time ago, when things were still simple, I shared with someone else of my dreams. About Africa, and about how much I would like to visit it one day, how I would like to volunteer for Doctors Without Borders so I can play music and watch all those kids smile. About my willingness to adopt one of those children when I found the right person to form a family. I told him everything, the simplest fact even the most important to me, and yet, even though he knew how special it was — even after he told me that he wanted to share my dream — he corrupted another one of my dreams. And once again, as if it were the first time, Mark Tuan broke my heart. 

**Day 81**

It's been raining for over two weeks. And thanks to the rain I haven't seen him in two fucking weeks. Okay It wasn’t entirely the rain’s fault and the strong gale that had shattered some windows of the logistics floor, it was 80% fault of the principal faculty, who decreed that no student could leave his building, unless it was to go away. In his words, he didn't want to put the students at risk by letting them roam the buildings and floors until the storm passed.

That's because some of the new buildings, which were mistakenly built outside the original college plant, were too far away from the main building for students to circulate safely — this is because the only way to move from a building to the another was crossing a kind of bridge, which connected the canteens, which were on the seventh floor of the building. That is, accidents could happen in the crossing because of the wind, and a fall from that height wasn’t in the educational program.  


So, thanks to the rain and the principal I haven't seen him in almost two weeks, and although I miss looking at him closely while his silence gives me chills in the skin, after that damn Saturday I think it's been better this way. I sigh, putting my face against the cold table.  


On the day 36 I, Choi Youngjae, took the initiative to invite Mark Tuan to play video games, and on the day 41 — Saturday at 00:45pm — after 7 hours of consecutive victories for my duo we were alone in my apartment. Well, not exactly alone, Yugyeom was in my room rubbing with someone he swears he never existed that night, but we were alone in the TV room, in silence.  


It was embarrassing. I wanted to say something, I wanted to thank him for quitting Sun Young’s party to be in my apartment, playing video games with my friends, but my tongue seemed to weigh more than normal that day, and my throat was sore.  


Then we were silent, watching the fire slowly burn in the small hearth, listening to the sound of rain and the sweet voice of Florence echoing in the song "Never Let Me Go" in our ears.  


Mark Tuan laughed at me that night. Not because of my silence or anything like that, but because I fell asleep without realizing it, and yet without realizing it, I drooled over he’s shoulder. Embarrassing.  


I raise my head, and close my face of the wet window. It was embarrassing and so I can't see him closely, but I can see him from where I am.  
Luckily one of the classroom where Mark takes class is practically next to my scenery class, so every Thursday I can see him sitting in his wallet, in the back of the room, in his eternal and distant silence of me. I wish he could see me too.  


" _Deliver the work on Friday, those who do not deliver will lose 35% of the note..._ " my teacher's voice echoed louder than my thoughts. I turn forward, and even if I’m numbed by my sleep, because I can see it through the window without having to work hard for it and the embarrassment of the memory, I perceive the stare in my face. Along the eyebrows, making her avert her gaze and turn to the teacher.  


I roll my eyes and stick my books in my backpack when the teacher releases us at last. I get out as soon as possible, because I need to pick up a book in the library and because I'm tired of the weird looks on that girl with the red face.  


"Youngjae hyung!" I don't need to look back to know it's Yugyeom. I stop feeling hes body bump into me. "Aish, you had to do that?!" he rumbles. 

"Yeeeeees..." 

"Whatever, are we going to the movies after school?"  


"I can't." I answer depressed. "I'm have a lot of things to do." I admit, making him show me the stained tongue of a dark blue mark. "Were you eating candys? You’are just going to stop sucking those lollipops when you get diabetes, Yuggie." I grumbling. "You know you can't eat those sh-"  


I was interrupted by my phone so I sigh frustrated. 

**Mark Tuan, Ace 16:56pm**  
Do you have something to do on Saturday?  
Well, it doesn't matter if you do, just cancel and get dressed,  
You're going to a wedding with me. I'll pick you up at 11.

My eyes grow up.  
"What the hell..."

"What is it?" Yug ask, sitting next to me with the book I had chosen. He brown eyes remain fixed on mine and even if I want to scream with joy and show everyone what's written in the message, I can't. "Jesus Christ, Youngjae" Yugyeom complains, taking the apparatus from my hands. He analyzes the message with his eyes sawed off. "Holy shit, we need to buy you a suit!"  


I wasn’t nervous about the fact that in less than 15 minutes I will be close to him once again, that we would go together to the marriage of his father's best friend and that meant that Mark Tuan did not repudiate me because I ruffled him. I look at myself once more in the mirror.  


"You will end up breaking the mirror — Jaebum babbles with a mouthful of chicken, and I roll my eyes. "Don't you think you're pretty enough already?" my best friend questions grumpy. I'm moving away from the wall. "Great. Now why don't you-"  


The doorbell rings, and I run. Jaebum, who is lying on the couch eating, laughs at my sudden haste, and shouts something inaudible. I step my tongue over my lips and open the door.  


Mark is incredibly handsome. He's peaceful, blond and silent. And he looks amazing in a suit and tie. I hold my breath when his smile opens to me, and he beckons, giving me hi.  


The moment I said goodbye to Jaebum and came down next to the blond boy, who smelled of fresh wood and rosemary, I wished that nothing went wrong and that I didn't drool over anyone that night. "He's my date today," It was like he was introducing me to the friends of the Tuan family, and it made my stomach squirm with joy. Mark was funny, loose, fun and talkative around he’s family, as if that shy, quiet kid never existed. And I loved it, I loved to see him playing with his younger brother Joey, and I loved watching him run after his nieces Kylie and Leila, in the midst of all the guests shamelessly.  


In addition to all the beauty and joy, his family treated me as if we were known for a long time, and his mother kept repeating "Mark is very grateful to you for helping him with korean, he always talks about you and how fun your classes are", which made me smile.  


In the end, the wedding was incredibly beautiful and many people were thrilled when the bride said "Yes." But nothing compared to the moment when the bride and groom went to the Pyebaek ceremony and Mark grabbed me by the arm, and whispered in my ear that we should go to the garden, where there were no people to disturb our conversations.  


"I can't believe you stole their booze, Mark hyung." I laugh, stop running.  


" _I can't believe you stole their booze, Mark oppa!_ " Mark repeats with amusement, which amazes me. "It’s a joke. But it would be funny if you called me oppa."

Oppa?? I guess he still didn't understand how korean culture worked, but I decided not say anything 'cause I never saw him loose like that, and I never expected to hear him send for me to call him oppa. And my fucking cheeks burn so fucking hard. _Gosh_. 

"Come, let's sit in the maze, no one will find us there."  
That's what he said before he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the little maze of bushes. I laugh, feeling the cold air warm in my skin too hot. We sit, drink, laugh and tell jokes that make us laugh even more.  


"You're so peaceful, blond and beautiful" I whispering, feeling my head swimming in my thoughts. "So beautiful. How can you be so beautiful?!" and there was the shy boy again. His cheeks turned red and his eyes wideneded, but my tongue was being controlled by the alcohol soooo. "All right, you don't have to be worried about anything, okay? I realize that your 10% gay soul is just that, 10% and Sun Young can rest easy, because I'm not going to try anything. I would never try, believe me, I respect people very much, because I want to be respected by them, so you can be quiet, because my thing for you is totally platonic, since it is clear that you do not like me the same way and..." I hiccup in the middle of my words. I shake my head. "What was I talking about?" I squeeze my eyes hard. "Oh, yes, you don't have to worry at all, because I'm okay with just being friends, so let's not get all complicated, because I had hopes and everything." I laugh, bending my torso closer to him, who looks at me serious. "Jesus, you really are so fucking handsome."  


"Are you done? " Mark asks with a smile on his lips. I nod. "Great."  


"Great!" I repeat, tapping on he’s shoulder. When I try to hit it one more time, I feel my wrists burn and my body gets feverish with speed. I don't know exactly how we ended up kissing, whether it was me who took him by surprise or if he did it. I just know that he’s mouth tastes like alcohol and he’s tongue is hot against mine. I try to let go of his grip, but the way he holds me is strong and possessive enough to make me red with effort. Shudder, feeling the grass poking at my neck when he pushes me back and deepens the kiss. I don't know if it was the weather, the sun or some mystical event, but I feel like I'm burning in flames. "I thought you were 90% straight..." I gasp against he’s lips when we split to breathe. Mark laugh, denying in absolute silence.  


I bring my saliva and lose control of my breath when he’s lips come down to my neck and kiss me hard. I bend under him, and I bite my lips, feeling my skin burn a little more in the place he sucks. He’s hand moves away from my left wrist, and I stick my fingers in the soft threads of he’s hair, pulling them when he’s lips suck my skin.  


" _Mark?Mark, where are you?_ " Joey screams again. " _Mark!"_  


"Shit, my parents must be looking for me." Mark’s voice sounds hoarse and sexy in my ears, and I nod. "We need to get back before they show up" I'll sit down as soon as he moves away. I fix my hair, and I step my hand in my face to, pointlessly, try to remove the redness on my cheeks and lips. He eyes stare at me, serious and undecipherable. I separate my lips to apologize, even if I have no idea why I want to apologize. "Can we get out? I mean, on a date."  


"In a-a-date?" my heart stop for a minute. "You and me? Together?"  


"I've had a few dates, but I think they only work with two people, so it's technically got to be you and me, together." Mark jokes. "So tomorrow is good for you?"  


"Tomorrow?" my heart shoots again. It's been 83 days since we first spoke at the college cafeteria. He was reading Romeo and Juliet, one of the books that his mother had given him as a child, and he didn’t say much. It's been 83 days, and he never said much or made it easy, but now, after a few drinks, Mark was asking me out on a date. Maybe it was the alcohol, the fact that we just joined a wedding and it was too hot, but I didn't care about the motive, I cared about the fact that he asked me out. "Yes. I'd love to go in a date with you."


	3. I loved and I loved and I lost you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said in the first chapter, this story is being more published to me than to win something, but today I win my first comment and I was happy because this is my second work in english and neither I had confidence in my abilities to transmit correctly what I wanted to say since english isn't my first language, but it turned out that some people actually understood what I wfe hahaha hope you like the chapter

**Day 452**

I hate him. Not like when I loved him, not like when I looked at him from afar and wanted to our eyes to meet and we happen in a pass of magic. No, that's not how I hate him. I hate him with all my strength, as if that was all that was left to hold me in the world, as if his existence cut my skin like blades, as if hearing his laughter in the distance was worse than getting shot in the head. It was the only thing I could feel for him right now. 

"Are you going to cry forever?" Jaebeom’s soft voice scares me. I lift my eyes, and I step my fingers over them, feeling them hurt. I didn't notice I was crying. "How many days does it take Youngjae? Seventy?" he wrinkles and sits next to me on the couch. I have no idea how long it's been since I've known him, that I let him destroy my life, that I delivered a whole heart and got something in pieces. I stopped counting on the day 381. 

My best friend, and now nanny — because Yugyeom refused to leave me alone, so when he wasn't around, Jaebum had to look at me — squeeze my knee hard. 

"Leave me alone, please".

"Youngjae-ya..." Jaebeom sigh. "Don't do that." he complains, pulling me closer and squeezing me in his warm arms. He voice asks something against my neck, but I'm submerged in sobs and tears, so I don't hear it. 

Mark Tuan made this to me. I hate him. I hate Mark with all my strength. I hate the fact that I still love him, I hate the way he still smiles at me in the college hall - as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't left me defective. I hate how I still dream about him, how I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking I'll find his body next to me in bed. And most of all, I hate that I can't sustain that hatred whenever I remember its existence, even if that one painful feeling is what holds me on earth. 

"I can't do this anymore…" I cry against Jaebeom’s chest. "I don't want to do this anymore, hyung" I whine to tears. "I won't be able to stare at that smiley face every day. He acts like nothing happened, like we're best friends and we could sit together in the cafeteria and talk about stupid things".

"Why do you think that?"

"Because that's what that bastard does!" I yelled, pushing him away. "He sends me messages hyung" I hiccup, looking for my phone in the middle of the mess on the couch. "As if we were super good, like he didn't fuck me and leave me like shit." I get up. "In college he smiles and nods at me. He smiles!" I rub my hands in my face. "How can someone be such a scoundrel, hyung?" 

If he could hear me now, crying like a complete baby, falling on his knees in the living room of the little apartment that one day he called "cozy home", if he could feel my chest ache every time his name comes back to my head, Mark Tuan would never look me in the face again. He wouldn't smile, he wouldn't wave, he wouldn't text me, because he'd understand how much it still hurts. Because, unlike him, I'm still suffering.

"Youngjae…"

"I hate him." I scream. "But I hate myself even more' cause I still love him, because I still don't understand what happened, because I still want time to come back and things stay the way they were before the storm, hyung." I lie on the cold floor. If I could disappear, I'd disappear. It would evaporate from the face of the earth as his love evaporated, dissolve my cells slowly until there was nothing left as he dissolved all the I love you. If I could, I would stop that pain in my chest and I wouldn't feel anything else. "I can't do this anymore". 

"So don't Youngjae, don't do it!" JB say between his teeth, and his hands grab me by the shoulders, making me rise from the cold ground. My legs are numb, maybe my whole body and my soul are numb, and I need him to try to help me get back on the couch. I hiccup. "Don't cry anymore, don't look at it anymore, forget that one day you've ever felt anything but contempt and hatred of him, because you don't deserve to suffer for a heartless bastard like Mark. Then don't suffer for it." Jaebum grumbles, wiping my tears and grabbing my face hard. "Don't suffer for him anymore. Please." 

"Hyung…"

"You deserve more." he interrupts me with a hug. "You deserves much more than doubts and a broken heart." JB say, straightening my back. "You’ll get over it, everything will be fine, because I'm here with you, because I will never leave you and I will never hurt you. Because you're my family and I'm going to protect you and help you win back the person you were before that pain ever existed in your chest. It may not look the same now, but you’ll always have me Youngjae. Always." he’s voice makes me want to cry, partly because I'm sorry I dragged you to the bottom of the barrel. I squeeze my arms around him and I cry. I cry because I have Jaebum, because I have Yugyeom and people who want me well, who do me good and love me completely. But I also cry because I was loved to pieces by whom I loved whole. Because I'm torn inside, because I feel like a piece of my heart has been eaten by Mark. 

****

**Day 84**

I hate Sundays. They are tedious, have nothing to watch on TV, Jaebeom is never home to spend time with me, Yugyeom lives too far to visit and I have no friends in my building. I mean, I hate Sundays because I never have anything to do. Not until that moment, when the blond-haired boy and the cute brown eyes asked me out, to go on a date with him on the best first Sunday of my life. 

"Can't believe you brought me to an park." I say happy. "I don't think I've been in one since I was sixteen."

"Why?"

"I have no clue." I shrug. "I think I grew up?" I smile unfunny. "I mean, after you get into college having time to do simple things like going to a park becomes impossible and almost surreal." Mark giggles. "I mean… I'm too grown-up and I don't have time."

"Then why did you agree to come today??

I shake my eyes at him, who smiles as if he had discovered some very important secret. I push him with his shoulders, and show him my tongue and an ugly face. 

" _Very adult_ " Mark giggle again. "Ok." he whispered. He don’t speaks too much. I've known that since the first time I saw him. Any other man who was playing basketball would be vibrating and screaming for the baskets of victory, but not him. He was too quiet to even celebrate. I Sigh. 

It's strange the fact that he don’t speaks too much, but I like that. I feel like I can spend hours talking without having to police myself because he's too quiet to keep me from talking, so I take advantage of the situation and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk nonstop. And I also laugh when he laughs at what I'm talking about. 

For example, he had passed my apartment at 19pm, we left at 20:56pm — just because Jaebeom forced him to play video games with him — and it was past 23:41pm and Mark hadn't said much. What little I had heard from his voice were his brief sentences of why I didn't go to the park and the fact that he believed that I am "adult", apart from this and other small moments, I was the one who spoke most of the time. 

"Do you want to go on that toy before we go?" I ask, pointing to the ferris wheel. "It's such a nice and quiet toy. I liked him when I was younger."

"Uh..." Mark twists his noise. "I thought we could close up here." he smiles and his eyes become tiny. I separate my lips to protest, but I end up stopping myself. He had not said much, we had not given hands as I thought we would after the kiss we shared at the wedding, we hadn’t shared stories and we didn’t seemed interested in each other. Well, he didn't seem interested. Maybe the kiss was really a thing of the moment, something he done because he’s a little drunk and this "meeting" is just a way to compensate me. I scratch the back of my neck. 

"It's just that I wanted to take you to dinner now." he’s voice makes my heart stop for a fucking moment. — "So we can talk a little more" — Mark Tuan smiles. — "I mean, I love parks and I loved to see you happy to be here, but I would really like to take you out to eat something in a quiet and more welcoming place".

_"Take me to dinner…"_ _Fuck_. I bit my bottom lip "You want to take me to dinner?!"

"Yes." he smile. "Do you think it's too much for a first date?" _OH MY FUCKING GOD. NO, NOT AT ALL! TAKE ME TO DINNER, I THINK THIS IS MORE THAN WONDERFUL THAT YOU WANT TO BE IN A QUIETER PLACE WITH ME, SO FOR GOD’S SAKE TAKE ME…_ I want to scream, but I say nothing. "Come on, have a dinner night with me, Youngjae, make me the happiest person in the world and accept dinner with me." he warm hands grab my arms and descend slowly into my hands. I giggle super happy. "This is a yes?" he voice sounds funny against the sound of my heart. 

I make a face, one with too many mouths open and eyebrows raised when Mark descends his hand to mine and intertwines our fingers. He laughs and squeezes my cheek with his free hand, causing my skin to burn over his touch. 

When we arrived at the restaurant I realized that he had already planned everything, because as soon as we greet the attendant and Mark says his name we are taken to a small cozy room. He made us a reservation, I want to lie down and roll on the floor when the woman asks that we wait for our request. He made a reservation like he's been planning to ask me out for years and not just a few hours! I bite my lips and I smile when my heart leaps into my chest. 

"Talk to me". he beg. I raise my eyebrows. “About waht?”

"Anything" Mark say all smiley. "Just talk to me, I like to hear your voice. Especially when you talk about something you like."

"So that's why you're always so quiet?" he nod. "Why do you like to hear me talk like a madman?" he sits down, and I watch him laughing. "Crazy one..." I giggle too. "What do you want to know about me, Mark hyung?" I remember the wedding, how he joked when he ask me to call him oppa, how he grabbed my wrists and kissed me. 

"Tell me why your cheeks are red." oh fuck am I red?! I cover my cheeks with even hotter hands. "Go on, tell me." I shake my head, making it clear that I don't want to talk about it. Mark, who was sitting in front of me, pushes the small wooden table to the side, and his hands hold me tightly by the knees before they pull me closer. I brought my saliva when I noticed that we were too close. 

"What are you doing?"

"I like having my hands on you" he admits like it’s a super simple answer. I don't need a mirror to know that my cheeks are even redder now. "And now I know why you’re so red, Youngjae-ya. Were you having impure thoughts about me?"

"Anyeo!" I yelled. I know I'm pouting, I know I'm wide-eyed and my cheeks are red and swollen, I know it makes me look childish and vulnerable, but Mark doesn't seem to care. In fact, he seems to find it amusing, as he hugs my cheeks with he warm hands and smiles so beautiful at me. "Stop it hyung!"

"So cuddly, so cuddly." he laughs, squeezing me. Before I can show my tongue or hit he’s hands, the wooden door rolls and a man with bulging eyes enters, placing the meats of our barbecue to grill. I clench my lips, preventing my laughter from sounding scandalous and too surprised that we were caught so close. 

Despite the boy's frightened face, Mark doesn't walk away from me and doesn't even seem to care about the way we're faced. My heart warms and I want to scream MARK TUAN LIKES TO BE WITH ME, HE TOOK ME AT THE PARK AND THEN TO DINNER, AND DOESN’T CARE ABOUT THE LOOKS OF THE OTHER BECAUSE HE’S WITH ME! I bite my lips. His brown eyes smile at me, and, in the most tranquil and intimate way on Earth, he takes a vegetable with his hand and offers it to me. 

I don't know how I managed, because I thought the gesture was simple and fluffy, and I almost flew over it, but I just smiled and accepted that it filled me with vegetables while our meat was ready. We eat, laugh and talk about life — in fact, about my life, since it doesn’t give me many details he’s life — as if we were best friends who had not seen each other for some time, but who remained equal in their feelings for each other. 

I could see how much Mark Tuan is in love with his family, what they mean a lot and how he wants to live next to them after graduating from college. I could also tell that he is one of those boys who, despite being unwell-looking, are confused by 40% of his life. I almost felt the despair bubbling in my stomach when I heard him say it, that he was confused with much of his life and that he was afraid of losing himself, but I reassured myself when his lips touched my cheek and his voice whispered in my ear that he likes me. 

That was our first date after our many first meetings at the university. It was the first date we held hands, that we counted things looking into each other's eyes, that we laughed at family jokes and had to explain them twice so that they really made sense. It was the first date, because that's when he told me he wanted to see me more often, because that's when he took me to my apartment and kissed me in front of my open old door — like in the movies — because it was the first time he said he would dream of our next meeting, who would dream of me. 

**Day 113**

That's twenty-six days of dating. When Kim Yu Gyeom arose at the door of my class holding a plate with CHOI YOUNGJAE FOLLOW ME PLEASE, I don't wait for anything more than a prank. It was September 2nd, so it would be my birthday and every year Jaebeom and Yugyeom would come together to make me a "surprise prank." That is, I wasn’t waiting for balloons and the PLEASE CAN YOU STOP BEING SO DIFFICULT AND BECOME MY BOYFRIEND? 

The first feeling I had was shame. Not of Mark, but of being looked at by half the students of SKU, by the pharmacy teacher staring at me with a confused smile on hes lips, because of all the girls who worked at the university encouraging me to go to the middle of the cafeteria. Then like a balloon about to explode, because it was being blown away with so much happiness that I didn't know how much longer I could stay in one piece without completely dismissing it. And as expected, I felt like the luckiest person in the whole world, because the peaceful boy as a marble-carved prince had taken the next step. Because he wanted to be my boyfriend and I wanted to be his boyfriend. 

Since then it's been twenty-six days and I'm happy as a child in an amusement park on a weekday school day. Twenty-six days of Mark, I like you. 

"Do you like me?" he asks, touching my hair. I clench my eyes, I nod a slowly no to her surprise. "Choi Youngjae!" Mark shouts my name, squeezing his legs around me, to leave me motionless. He's possessive and boring. There's not a soul in the world that can prove otherwise, Mark likes to touch, to squeeze, to bite me, to stare at me while I'm doing my things. He was the crazy boyfriend impersonation, and I, unfortunately, thought it was funny. Not because I'm also crazy, but because everything he did was loaded with a funny look of appreciation. For example, right now, as he pretend to bite me hard, he’s eyes stare at me funny and affectionately. I move over his body, and, unlike him who just pretends, I bite his chin, making him moan. I clench my lips. "Don't do it that like this." 

—"Uh?" — we were alone in my apartment for the first time. It's Monday, Jaebeom works late every Monday, but this time he had gotten stuck with two more hourly loads, because he needed money to buy a new video game, and I would have to sleep alone. You see, I said "would," not that I have. 

"Just don't do it, please." Mark asks hoarsely, passing the tip of his tongue over he’s red lips. I keep my weight on my elbows and I push my body a little higher, to reach he’s lips. Her hands bring me closer, making me literally stand on it. It won't be long before I'm as hot as hell. I stick my fingers in her blond hair, and then my tongue in her mouth. "Okay…" he’s voice sounds too low. _We're just kissing, relax._ I want to say, but I'm dizzy. "You don't want to make this any more serious than you already seem to be getting, Youngjae." I whine to hear him say that. _Take it easy Youngjae, you always go too fast in the pot. So don’t scare the poor kid, he seems to be shy in certain respects._ Yugyeom's annoying voice comes into my head, which makes me huff. "Ya, why are you mumbling?" Mark asks, grabbing my cheeks hard. "What is it?"

"You don't want me right?" and there was Youngjae puppy, the other version of me that was six months without sex and needed to feel that someone wanted it that way. I sigh.

"Of course I want to you, Youngjae. Don't be crazy."

"Then fuck me." I ask before it is too late, before he dilated pupils return to normal, and my face is warm with shame. Mark separates his lips and his tongue rubs off on himself I put he’s hands away from my cheeks, and sit on he lap, grabbing him by the neck. 

I'm desperate. That is, sadly, the purest and most sincere truth. When I first saw him playing basketball, my mind forced me to review it for days, which led me to take countless cold baths in the middle of the night. That's when I knew I was going crazy, when I realized I was looking at him too much, when I had an erection in the middle of a class because I was thinking about how I wanted to feel his lips around me. So, yes, I'm desperate for Mark Tuan, and I'm afraid to scare him for it, but I can't control myself now, not when his hands are on my hips and his dick is hard under me. 

He lips get unfastened from mine, rolling slowly over my sensitive skin and shivering, causing me a feeling of tightening when he suck my neck hard. 

I bite my lips and grab the leather of the couch while he’s hands push me harder against he’s cock, making me up and down against him, which causes me a lacerating pain in my crotch. Mark moans hoarsely against my neck, and when his hands enter the blouse of my pajamas, grabbing me by the hip and bringing me more forcefully against him, I know I will not be able to settle for what little I am getting. 

I grab the bar from he’s blouse, pulling it up. He’s hands let me leaving a cold trail on my skin, and clinging to my hands hard. Our fingers attack, mine to try to rid him of the damn blouse that prevents me from touching his skin, and theirs to control me. I get loose from his grip, pushing his shoulders back, and taking his lips in mine. He whispers something inaudible and warms up once again when I grind against his erection, making him squeeze my butt hard. 

Their moans sound in my ears, and although there is the sound of the TV on, they are the only things I hear when we separate our mouths and sit once more in their lap, where I rake my hips. 

"Uh..." I moan, rubbing my butt against he rigid boner hidden by his pajama pants. Mark bites his lips so hard, I think I see them glowing in red blood, and his hands tighten my hips, my butt, my thigh. "Fuck me..." 

His torso rises on the couch, he grabs me by the waist and turns me with brutality, making me take his place quickly. I close my eyes when I feel he’s teeth close against my mouth, and I get lost quickly in her smell when he’s hands rip off my pants and he’s lips come down moist and desperate for my tummy, even my penis. 

I always wondered what it would be like to have him on top of me for months, how his mouth should be hot, how his smell should be on my skin after a night of sex. I suffered in silence because of my fantasies, so when his hand closed against the extent of my dick, exposing it and his tongue descended slowly over my glans, I couldn’t contain the desperate moan that escaped my parched throat and the way my hands grabbed he’s blond hair. 

I wiggle my hips, feeling he’s tongue rubbing on me slowly before he’s lips take me completely, making me arch my back and whimper. I could feel he’s throat.

"Uhn-Ah-huh..." I moan. "Oh, fuck..." I whispering, closing his teeth on my lips, feeling him rubbing his fingers in my doorway. I'm ready to feel his all when Mark moves away, still massaging my dick. "Mark..." I want to fight for the absence of his lips against my cock, but before I can even think about it, Mark grabs me by the hip and makes me turn around. My heart quickens, my mouth gets dry and my body obeys its possessive and desperate hands without me having time to think. He’s warm fingers rub on my roll, and when I remember the lubricant hidden in the last drawer of my dresser, I feel it slowly inserting them into me, one by one. I let my head fall and my hips go back, against he’s fingers that penetrate me quickly. 

When I think of the burning that is formed, I don't think about how it will increase when it is really inside me, I just react to the moment and pull my body forward, at the same time that Mark hugs my hips and pulls me back against him. My body shudders for a moment, my hands cling to he’s arms around me, my moans get stuck in my throat and all my skin burns. 

One of his hands goes up to my forehead, so that I feel my whole neck stretch when I'm forced to lay my head on his shoulder. 

"Shh, calm down… Just relax." his voice is nothing but a whisper against my ear. He keeps standing still, still inside me, only his chest moves against my back and his other hand against my cock, masturbating him slowly, as if that little touch would relieve the burning sensation in my butt faster. "Oh, come on Youngjae, you want it so much..." he whispers, moving my head so that my neck is exposed and he can lick it. My body trembles at the hoarse and mysterious tone of his voice, which echoes through every corner of my mind. _Yes, I wanted it. I wanted him inside me, that way, strong and unannounced, desperate and depraved._ I want him so much that I comforted myself with the pain of the sudden onslaught, I comforted myself with my loud cries that soon turned into desperate moans when he’s dick moved in and out inside of me. His hand descended from my forehead to my neck, where he leaned back and pulled me down as he carried his hips up, against me. "Relax love... Yes like this babe, just relax..." Mark moaned in my ear when I thrust my fingers into his thigh and rolled against his penis, which he instilled me with strength. I clenched my teeth over her lips, and her hand pressed harder on my neck. 

When my body was pushed forward, I rolled my eyes desperately, because I felt it move rudely inside me before he’s hands clung to my hips and pulled me back quickly. It may not seem, but at that time of the “show”, with him stocking my prostate quickly and forcefully, I didn’t even know my name or what the meaning of pain, just knew that I liked the way it left my skin warm, how I liked the feeling caused on my penis by his agile hand, of how his moans got confused with mine and made it all so pornographic. Mark Tuan was fucking me for real, shameless, without that shyness a few minutes ago, but with passion and strength. 

I already felt the muscles of my tummy twitch, my legs falling and my mind rolling to some corner numbed by lust when grunting against the hot and damp leather by our sweat while enjoying in his soft hand around me. 

With a feeble mind, I heard his laughter reach my conscience, and I opened my eyes. I was burning, trembling, panting and ecstatic. He lay on my back and kissed my cheeks while whispering something inaudible, moved slowly and withdrew from me, asking me for passage to lie beside me and pulling me closer to his body. 

I was still numb by the sensation of my recent orgasm, my whole body was screaming for my mind to turn off in a heavy and yummy sleep of sexual memories, but my heart quickened and his smiling eyes on mine moved me faster than his mumbles "sleep Youngjae, you look so fucking tired". I was tired, it was true, but I was more determined to make him enjoy the way he had done me a moment ago.

Although protestant, his fingers don’t take long to close in my wet hair when I swallow he’s penis. I masturbate him quickly, the same way Mark had done with me, and squeeze his lips around his glans, making him pull his hips down and whine greedy. I smile, repeating the grip with his lips, and swallowing his whole cock at once. His hips move, his moans become loud against the voices on TV and my breath cut off by the lack of oxygen, and I increase the pace of the movements of my lips and my tongue around him. His hips move. 

I feel it reaching my throat hard, one, two, three, four, five times until I choke — which doesn't stop him. My eyes are full of tears and my throat burns, but I hear his moaning crazed, whispering incoherently how much he like to feel my lips. When he sticks himself in my mouth once more, holding me against his movement, I feel his taste against my throat and his hand get rid of the grip, bringing his enjoyment slowly from the bottom of my tongue to my chin. 

And then, sticky, satisfied, sore — well, just I'm aching —, cuddled and happy we slept on the living room couch, with the TV on and a smile on our face.


	4. the feeling never gonna away

**Day 460**

The loud music was hurting my ears and as much as I tried to deny it, I had a headache because of it. To be honest, maybe it wasn't the music’s fault since I've had this damn headache for almost eight days now — ever since I started looking for scholarships outside Korea. 

I was in the computer’s class, had missed the first two classes because I wasn’t in the mood to decorate script and stage whatever the scene was prepared for the day. Or maybe I should say I had missed the first two classes because I didn't want to cry having to memorize some romantic script to then shock everyone by making the worst staging of my life. 

"Youngjae-ssi!" Chaewon’s annoying voice sounded much louder than my headphones. I automatically stop typing’ cause she fucking scary me. The girl with the small black eyes, very dark hair and rosy cheeks eyes grow up embarrassed to have yelled in my ear in the middle of the computer room, which was full. "Sorry…"

"Are you crazy? Don’t yell like that!" I complain, pressing my palm in my ears. "Fuck I’m deaf now." she sits beside of me. And I quickly realize that sitting so close to me, she can read my research, so I press ESC key. "What do you want?" 

"Aish, don't be rude Youngjae-ssi" Chaewon whispers embarrassed. I think she’s cute like that, but hear her call me Youngjae-ssi as if we were complete strangers make me wanna punch her in her face. But I just snitch, patting her hand, making her look at me. 

"I'm sorry Chaewonie" I leaned. "I'm angry, I shouldn't have to cash in on you." 

"I shouldn't have yelled, but it's just that you wouldn't listen" she shakes her head at me, and I nod. "I'm sorry Youngjae-ssi." 

"Oh my fucking God, stop calling me that Kim Chaewon!" I grumbling, returning to be angry at everything. "We've been friends for a couple of months, you've cleaned my tears and probably my phlegm in the middle of them." I remember, making her smile desperate. If I wasn't so upset I could smile because of the way her cheeks get big and crush your eyes too small. "We're friends for God’s sake". Aish, I'm just mess around with you, idiot. Show respect to your noona!" Chaewon yelled, turning forward to the computer's still connected screen. We met in the theatrical improvisation game class, when the teacher made her weep because she couldn’t keep the level expected for him in the dynamics. I don't know why, maybe I was less sad that day, but I just followed her out of the room and I comforted her, promising that I would help her improve on. Since then, Chaewon, as well as Jaebum and Yugyeom, has heard my lamentations. "What were you doing?"

"Research."

"From the theatrical management class?" she questioned. "I thought we were going to do it together Youngjae..." she shakes her head, and takes the mouse. "I'm so late in this, why didn't you call me to..." her voice stop before I can stop her quick finger. I bite my lips and cringe at the chair next to her.

**Research: How to heal a broken heart?**

"Chaew..."

"What the heck?" this time, she doesn't get her cheeks flushed when everyone complains about her yelling. I cover my ears and I get up fast. I don't want to hear her, I don't want to have to get another “talk” ‘bout why I should let it go, how everything would be fine, how things would go back to normal if I just let it go. I didn't want to, so I run. "Stop right now.' my hangry little best friend screams, running after me in the busy hallway of the theater building. "Youngjae!"

I turn in a hurry in the hallway and when I pass through the video room, I'm scared to see her standing in front of me. I look back a few times, not understanding how Chaewon had surpassed me. The girl with the inflated cheeks shakes her finger at me.

"I don't want to hear a sermon noona." — I complain.

"So don't waste your time researching about ten ways to heal a broken heart so I won't give you any sermon your dickhead." her voice sounds too loud and some girls, who were sitting in the hallway, laugh. I face them angrily making them shut the fuck up. "Why were you researching that your silly?" I shrug my shoulders, and I lean against the wall. "I know you're hurt, but no tutorial will make you better, it's you who has to do it yourself, Youngjae."

"Do you really think it's easy?" I shaking my head. "Well, it's not easy, it's not easy at all. Especially when I have to see him every day in the halls" I whine. "It pains me to have to stay in the room because I can see him sitting at the bottom of his class, smiling after reading something on his phone, chatting excitedly with people I've never seen before, as if the peaceful boy had never existed and he was actually a sonic mess in my fucking mind. I have to see him all happy, all "I'm having so much fun with God knows who while I have to be I'm in a lot of pain for this asshole who now doesn't look like the boy I fell in love with". I smile to her. "It's not easy to fall in love, is it?"

Before Kim Chaewon can say anything pronounced, Yugyeom sounds at the end of the hall, which makes me stop crying as soon as possible — he was already sad enough to be the "cupid" who disgraced my life, so I didn't want to leave him much worst.

He waves to Chaewon and then pulls me by the wrist toward the canteen saying they're serving pizza. I smile unwillingly and I follow him down the hall, feeling the serious look at me at all times, almost as if he were saying "I'm here."

We eat pizza, Yugyeom makes Chae laugh until she tangles with the soda, and it causes me laughter. It was strange to hear the sound of my laughter, it was so long since I had actually laughed that it was really weird.

The last time I laughed like that was when Mark took me to see a movie in the movies, before things got weird and he spent less time with me. Mark...

" _Youngjae…_ " his hoarse voice echoes in my ears, making my eyes grow-up. Silence. The fucking beautiful silence. I look at him. "Hi."

"For God’s fucking sake, what you want here?" Yugyeom roars when I try to leave the table and am barred by the boy with blond hair and wide smile on his lips. "What's your damn problem, Mark? Leave him alone you fucker."

"I'm not here to talk to you Yugyeom-ah" Mark growls back, his brown eyes tighten for my friend, who stands up, making him remember his disadvantage near him. Before I laughed at the implication of the two, of how Yug kept picking on Mark's foot for being younger and taller than him. _Before_ , **now** I just wish the blond would leave me alone. "then drop your fucking ball and mind your own fucking business".

"Don’t talk to him like that your idiot." I say. Mark open he’s mouth… "Go fucking away Mark." I stop him. "Just go away please".

"But I want to talk to you…" he say. "How are you doing?" the question makes my heart stop and all the remaining sanity dissolves in my veins. I loose a furious scream, almost like a wild animal.

"How am I doing?" I yells. "How am I fucking doing? Well, let me see how I'm doing, Mark…" I support my hand on the chin. "Oh yes, I'm wonderful as a damn millionaire who doesn't have to worry about anything in life, not even with one out. I'm fucking great. I'm so good that I'm not feeling my heart ache right now because you're standing in front of me, much less crying every night because I think of you, about us, about the things we had, the love that I thought would last more than two whole lives. I'm jumping for joy at the fact that I need to live with you in this damn college, even happier that you're fucking that son of a bitch who suddenly became the love of your life, and... Oh, Mark... You can't imagine how happy I am that you've left me in misery, for breaking my heart and acting like you've done nothing!" I'm panting, hot, dizzy and tired by the amount of words I've uttered without stopping to breathe. 

I'm even sadder than tired, sad to be screaming in the middle of the cafeteria full, sad to be crying for my broken heart and the Mark Tuan’s perfect smile. I hiccup without control, and despite being embarrassed by the people watching us, I can’t move to cry somewhere else. 

Suddenly, as if he had not heard a word, Mark stepped forward and extends his hand.

"Youngjae…"

"Are you crazy?! Why are you messing with me again?!" I cry so hard. Fuck I’m a pathetic little boy. "Isn't everything you've done enough? Isn't it enough that everything you threw away, you still need to hurt me more, Mark?" I moving away from him.

"Youngjae-ya..."

"No, no, you can't call me that!" I'm getting irritated among the tears and sobs, I'm getting desperate to be taken away. "You can't hurt me anymore Mark, you've done enough."

"I just want..." "You don't understand korean anymore?" I shout with hiccups. "You want me to speak in english to you?" I ask sarcastic. "Get out of my way, I don’t want you here idiot". I say between my teeth, but Mark just stand and look at me. "Go away, leave me alone if-"

Mark’s hot and soft hand grip on my wrist, cuts my breath and my mind, and before he can pull me near to where my heart lies, and hurt me even more, he grip disappears and hes body is pushed away. 

I separate my lips, inquired in unison with the rest of the people in the cafeteria, surprises and put my hand over my mouth, fearing that the two start fighting at that exact moment. 

"Sunbaenim…" I whisper, scared. He had come so fast, Mark was holding me and suddenly I was being pushed hard for away.

"Did you not hear what he said?" Park Jin Young, that's not my friend but rather just an acquaintance, that just gives me a time or two in the wall by pure education, growls to Mark Tuan, the person that broke me in half. "Get the fuck out."

The blond rubs he’s lips — the way he always did when he was angry — and smiles at Jinyoung, who smiled back without hesitation. The two watch me at the same time, and even if black-haired boy is cutting the space between our bodies, I can feel him near me when Mark matter leaving a paper on the table before leaving the cafeteria.

I don't have time to run, the tears come and I feel the warm arms of my two friends, who by then was as shocked as I am with the whole situation. The warm voice of Yugyeom whisper in my ear that everything will be fine, that he and Chaewon are there for me, we're going home and we're going to be away from school for ten years so I want.

I hiccup against Yug’s warm chest, the voices no longer arrive before my ears because we're in the parking lot and the low sound of music on the car radio of Chaewon seems to calm me down gradually — even if it's one of the saddest songs to your playlist.

"Choi Youngjae!" Park Jinyoung’s uncomfortable smile opens for me, making me thank him mechanically for helping me for a few moments ago in the cafeteria. If it wasn't for him, I would have melted at Mark’s touch and would have died of sadness at the same time. "No need to thank me". the man laughed. "So, I thought you might want this..." Jinyoung say, waving a letter to me. "I know it hurts when we love someone and she doesn't love us the same. Believe me, I know exactly how it is, as our hearts and our minds asks that all stop..." the dark-haired boy sees the paper with a smile. "but I also know that some wounds need not only of bandages, they need a little more pain, so our hearts and our minds shows us that we don't deserve it, we deserve more. And then, when the pain appears, everything we do is for our sake, even poke it a little more in the hope that the Peel rises faster." his black eyes stare at me, and your smile is still there. "So, I think you should live your pain Youngjae because maybe only then you realize that you deserve more, that you're strong enough to stand well alone in the storm. I know that, you can read his letter."

"Jinyoung-ssi…" 

Yugyeom, who is hugging me, turns away as confused as me. I bring my saliva and picked up the letter before the courage short. Jinyoung says goodbye and runs toward the entrance of the school, leaving us alone.

I clean my eyes, my vision is still blurred a bit when I finish to open the folded red paper, and my hands shake a little bit because of all the recent events that were swinging my mind and my heart violently.

_Young Jae-ya,_

_I was watching the kids with Hyunie noona and I realized that they feel your lack and are always asking for the boy from beautiful voice, the smiling shunshine who was always with a guitar in his hand and fingers ready to play piano for them, come back._

_You stopped coming to see them. It’s because it hurts to be near me? Because if so I want you to know that this is your special place and I'll leave and never come back' cause you deserve this place, because he is your. Fuck, the kids sense your lack, Jae._

_I have a feeling you won't read this letter, but I will do my best for my favorite teacher can read it one day. If your heart heal and this letter arouse your curiosity... Maybe one day, right? Yes, maybe someday you can forgive me. One day... One day I'll forgive myself for hurt you, for not having loved you as much as you loved me._

_I see you every day and I smile because I don't know what to do, because I think if you smile you will realize that not everything was pain, that all was lost and that you, like me, can still have a bright and happy life. Youngjae, be happy. Please be happy and smile as you smile before. Allow yourself to be the smiling boy one more time, please. I know I can't ask you to do that and maybe you go calling me names when I get to that part, but I have to try. I have to try at least one last time begging for you to come back to have that smile lights up every day._

_Youngjae, I pray every day for you to be well and be happy, so you can go back to being that silly boy of the amusement park. If you need to hate me for this, fine, hate me, but be happy..._

_I'm leaving the hospital. Children sense your lack and I miss seeing you smiling around them. Play some happy music when you feel strong enough to go back and let your life shine once again._

_You once told me that the sun always appears after the storm. So, please, let the sun illuminate all the dark corners ‘cause you need this._

_And, before I forget, nothing has changed. You will always be my first love. Will always be the first person in my life._

_Youngjae... Sorry._

So I cry. Because the pain in my heart, by the feeling of he’s hand in my sking, by the fact that I still love him and want to melt in he’s arms. I cry for he’s letter. By the fact that he's feeling too, and I wasn't sure that I could return to life again. I just cry.

****

_**120 DAY** _

__  


The bodies moving to the sound of the loud music creates an optical illusion, as if every being in that Club became a blur of choppy waves and colorful on the dance floor.

So I smile, seeing my friends dance to some music which at that time became audible to my ears dulled by alcohol. Contrary to what we think when Mark dragged us to Hongdae in full proof, that as far one of the best clubs that had already gone since we entered into adulthood. 

I don't know I'm just happy to be in a club after having entered into a reclusive life because of college — and because of my ego bruised by the worst human being on earth — or if was with Mark and my friends that was driving me in the clouds , but I was fine, I was happy and felt very light. Maybe it was the alcohol.

"I have to admit, things that spoke about Hongdae are far true." Jaebeom shouted in my ear, while pulling me into the bathroom. I assented, taking a little more of my drink. He had claimed all the way about going somewhere else, on their friends who have had bad moments in ballads of the region, but the minute we set foot in the club and left to board by the atmosphere he as like Lord, I love Hongdae. "Mark definitely has good taste in places." 

"And people..." I say. "And to fuck too."

"What?" Jaebum asks, turning to face me. He squeezes his eyes shut and bit her lips. I wanted to tell what had happened a few days ago, but he was so busy with work and with the college decided to wait. "Youngjae... You don’t."

"Yes I do." Jaebum grabs he’s hairs with anger and call me names. "So but it just happened!" I explain myself. "You know how I am, I get carried away and when I see, I'm being fucked and..."

"Ok, stop right there." Jaebum grumbles, raising his hand. "I don't need to know."

"Jaebeomie!" I whine. My best friend shakes his head saying _no, no, I don't need to be traumatized, not really, I'm not going to hear_. "You don’t want to hear even the fact of having sex on the living room couch?" I question, knowing that it will explode.

"ON MY COUCH?!" the red haired boy screams. "YOU FUCKED ON MY FUCKING COUCH?" he leans her forehead on the wall, pretending to knock it over and over again. I giggle. Aish, you profaned my couc ... Aish!" he shout echoes through the bathroom. "I slept in it yesterday!"

"Jaebum!" I guffaw, going to him. "Easy, I swear I spent Sunday dedicating myself to let him new and spotless of any type of fluid you can have it soiled."

After much complaining, Jaebum punch me to learn that, at the moment of lust, I ended up having sex without a condom. I know I'm going to stay with the purple arm by her punches, but I hope he “mom” explosion cease and I remind him of all the girls he had sex without a condom, and how I helped support the first 12:00 am of distressing for the pill to kick in without going crazy with the possibility of a future Im baby Jaebum was made.

Despite being less irritable, JB didn’t fail to tell me off whenever possible, and whenever I was rolling my eyes to your expression upset he'd pinch me the arm with strength.

"Mark!" the music might be high, but the voice shouting my boyfriend’s name looked much more high in my ears. Mark lit up and ran to the boy of plated hair. It was the same as I had seen him behind the college.

My heart, stupid and full of suspicion, accelerates when the two embrace in a compliment too intimate. I remember how Mark had the boy next to him the day he saw them together for the first time, how he smiled happily and the other near the back of the head.

Yugyeom, who was dancing like crazy in the middle of the track, scream my name, and I almost decide to go up to him and pretend that I'm not feeling butterflies in my stomach but JB forces me to stay where I am, your eyes shout STOP BEING A CHILD and I smile for the platinum kid.

"Youngjae, this is Bambam" Mark say high in my ear. "He was my first friend when I arrived in Korea, was the one who encouraged me to create balls and ask you to go to that wedding." he naive smile made me separate the lips, and I want to apologize for the nasty feeling in my stomach. "Bam, this is Youngjae, the guy who I told you that I love." bring my saliva. THE GUY WHO I TOLD YOU THAT I LOVE. His voice echoes in my head, the music fades quickly and my heart will light leaving the cold behind. I bite my lips and we shake our hands. He loves me. "He is my _sunshine. My heart."_


	5. a fucking garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeaaaaah tks a lot the girls who sent me comments, it was cute and I loved haha  
> I never review my chapters because I really don't have much time, I simply went out writing and don't realize the automatic fixes, so if there is some error... sorry haha  
> hope you like it

**Day 145**  
**_Mark Tuan’s pov_ **

When people love, they go crazy. They lose their tempers and their lives, most of the time it seem like a roller coaster. And maybe I feel that way. No, I don't feel that way. _It's confusing._

I don't feel the madness blind me, I just feel like I'm living on a roller coaster, with my chest inflated in some confused feeling and mind disturbed by gaps that scream constantly. 

People how love, they go crazy, they get desperate for their loved ones, they suffer and they cry with nostalgia. They conquer and build their castles of hearts full of good feelings, their minds shine in a constant replay of smiling memories — even from memories filled with tears and screaming — but love it’s wasn't like that with me. There was nothing that should exist. Nothing.

It was as if they had thrown water at me, as if all the heat that warmed my skin had evaporated slowly. Like I never existed.

Maybe I'm too tired, maybe every alcohol nights has affected something inside of me. It might even be the fact that my parents are reluctant. Or maybe it’s was just **me**.

I rub my eyes and I take my phone out of my pocket, staring at the background photo first on the blocked screen, and then I sigh, reading the twenty-fifth message. 

**Sunshine, my love at 15:00pm**  
People fight Mark, but that doesn't mean  
that they don't look good after. You're overreacting!  
Can you come back? Talk to me...

**Sunshine, my love at 15:01pm** You're not really going to answer?

**Sunshine, my love at 15:02pm** You're acting like a child. Unbelievable!

I put my phone back in my coat pocket and I get up as soon as I sight the taxi.”

“What do you think you're doing?” the voice behind me asked roughly. “That's my cab”.

“Your?” I pucker my nose. “Did you buy it?” I ask. He stares at me with a confused expression and rolls his eyes, putting his hand on the door latch. “It's my trip!”

“I don't know if you understand the concept of client of the time, but when someone gives the signal and the taxi stops, it's logical and common sense that that person whose hand was shaken desperately for the damn taxi to stop is the damn client of the time!” his hoarse voice inquires like a boring teacher. I squint. “That is, I shook my hand, the taxi stopped... It's my trip”

“I don’t give a shit about it dude” I shot back. “I'm in this crap point has almost 30min, this is the same taxi that passed the 15min ago and said that it returned to-“

“Sorry interrupted you, but I don't fucking care” the black-haired man mumbled, interrupting and opening the door. With the side of my body I push the door hard, making him face me brave. “Dude, can you please stop being clueless?! It's my fucking turn. If he came back once, he'll come back again”

“I'm not going to wait just because you think you have a right to shake your fucking hand, asshole” I shake hands, showing how much I also know how to "strive" to call a taxi at a stop.

Yes maybe I'm not on my best day, my head aches, my heart is stupid and my boyfriend has been acting like a child ever since he said I still didn't want my family to know about us being together. That is, my limit of patience had been exhausted for a long time and I wouldn’t let a stranger worsen my state. 

“Look here boy...”

“Instead fighting, why not share the trip?” the driver, who was frightened by the discussion, asked, making us huff. _Not a chance._ The sound of a new SMS coming into my phone made me close my eyes and breathe deeply. I didn't have time for that crap. **Another SMS, then another, another and another…**

When I open my eyes again I find the man staring at me apprehensively, as if he were preparing to save a drowning victim — in the meantime, the driver tries to get our attention. Another SMS arrives in my inbox and I open the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked him. He look confused at me . “Hurry up, we have to see how far each one goes” I shot, pulling him by hi’s arm.

**☼**

_“Why not?”_

__  
“Just no Youngjae”. I complain, feeling my head ache. “Can we change the subject now please? I thought we were going to have a peace time today."

“No peace until you explain to me why I can’t be presented as your boyfriend to your family If we've been together for so long” he whimpered, crossing his arms. “At the wedding you introduced me as your date, so why can't you just go over there and say: hi mom and dad, remember my date...? Well, now he's my boyfriend and he makes me very happy and that's why you need to get to know each other?” 

_“Because it's not that simple” I admitted. “I say everyone is my date, of course they were thinking you were just a friend.”_

_“Don't they know you're gay?” he question made me laugh. “I thought…”_

_“They know Youngjae. I just don't want to introduce you”._

_  
“Oh…” **fuck**. “I got it” that's when I realized the tone of his voice, the way his eyes fell and his cheeks turned pale. I get up fast and I hug him — even when he pushes me away. _

_What I said went totally wrong. I didn't want to introduce him as my boyfriend because we were still at the beginning, because I didn't want to screw everything._

_“I didn't mean it that way my love” I whispering, passing my lips on the soft, smelly skin of her neck. “I want to introduce you, mom already suspects but I want to do this in the right time. I need to do at least that at the right time. Let's not spoil things by rushing everything, please try to understand. I want my family to know about us, but at the right time’ cause I'm not going to like it if they're giving us the wrong hunch.”_

_He sniffs, releasing all his weight in my arms. It's how I know your heart isn't sad anymore or at least you're not as sad when you should be. I smile_

__

__

“Promise?"

“Yeah, I promise you” I smile, kissing he’s neck. “Soon we will present ourselves as Mr. and Mr. Choi... Or Tuan, I don't know”. he laughs at me. “I promise I will show you off so everyone knows I'm yours and you're mine. And that I love you forever.”

“I love you too.”

__

**\- ☼ -**

“What?!” 

“I asked if you were feeling well…” the man asks, looking at me with his eyebrows erected. His black eyes remain fixed on me and his face lights up when the car comes out of the small tunnel and is filled by the sunlight. “You…”

“I'm fine” I whisper, turning my eyes to my phone. _No, I'm not okay_. My brain can't get me to stop thinking about all the times I've lied, every time I've acted on impulse not to hurt him. He doesn't get tired of slapping me because I'm guilty of the direction my life was taking, because I'm guilty of the feeling of emptiness in my chest every time I see his messages. I'm so guilty that I want to cry.

I miss the calm Youngjae, who taught me korean and that made me laugh with any nonsense. Of the handsome smile boy who was ashamed to admit that he wanted me, but that he made it clear with his cheerful eyes to see me that they couldn’t forget me.

Now we were so serious, so gray instead colored. Now he screamed that I didn't want him as if he believed in it, he cried because — as much as it had happened just under a month since the last time he asked me to introduce him — I still didn't feel ready to take him to my family, to introduce him as my boyfriend.

I love him. I love that light, funny, full-life kid I took to the park and watched people walk in the most dangerous toys in the place with enthusiasm. I love him, I will always love him, because he completes my soul so that there is no room left for anything else.

I love him so much that I want to cry because I'm letting him go slowly because he's feeling my chest open up in a dark, sad space. I love him so much that it hurts to admit that I may not love him anymore.

_Fuck. I don’t love him anymore_.

“You don't look so good” the man whispered cautious. “Do you want to stop at the hospital and see what it is? I don't care, we can stop if you want” he informs with education. I nod a strong no. “But…”

“I'm just sad because my relationship barely started and is already going to waste because my boyfriend was the most radiant thing in the world and suddenly he happened to be that desperate person, who can't wait a few months for us to be sure of everything they want them into our lives before we go out and take huge steps” I growl without thinking, feeling the tears roll out of my eyes. “I'm fucking sad because I love him and I don't love him, and... I'm so fucking confused... Because I love him... Aish, because my chest is empty and I don't want to feel it! I want to go back in time when all we had was our simple, calm love. Without this exaggerated haste of _please, please, introduce me to your parents and all your friends, because only then will I believe that what you feel is equal to what I feel_ ”. 

I know I'm sounding like a complete lunatic when the man opens his eyes, but I can't stop. Now that I've started, I feel like I need to finish, that I need to get this complicated monologue out of my mind once and for all. “I want to go back to the cafeteria and do everything calmly” I rub my coat sleeves on my face. It’s hurt love and don’t love somebody. “I want to be good to him”.

“I bet you're good to him” he whispers, putting his hand on my shoulder. I sigh ready to tell about all the times I lied to make Youngjae happy, tell about the new reality in which he yelled at me and asked me to leave because he didn't want me anymore. But unfortunately, the taxi stop making me shut up. “I come down here” he’s voice becomes apprehensive. I'm huffing, I'm sniffing. “Maybe it's not your fault”.

“What?”

“It seems both lost each other” the black-haired man with brown eyes smile sympathetic. “but it's not your fault, much less his. The human being tends to be crazy when it comes to passion, usually everything happens too fast, so don't punish yourself so much’ cause it's not your fault if the speed has deteriorated your love” his voice sounded confident and understanding, as if he had 100% sure what he was talking about. “We are in the world for this, to love and stop loving in the blink of an eye, to feel filled completely and suddenly we are no longer…” even the driver had turned to hear him so sure he seemed to be. I nodded. “And sometimes we pretend because we really want it to be true, because something is still important, because we want to make it work right?” the man shrugs his shoulders. “I don't think it's a sin to feel empty, it seems that this was his only destiny. Maybe not, I don't know” he’s laughter fills the car. “But, well... If you've noticed, he's going to realize it too and maybe you can have a way after all, maybe you can get your happy man back. Who knows.”

I'll be quiet for a minute. What the fuck? I want to laugh and ask if he is a psychologist or something like that, but the sound of the engine being turned on again makes me sigh deeply.

“Yes, who knows..” I whispering, staring at my hands. The sound of the door opening draws my attention and my heart aches for my lack of education. “Thank. What you said kind of made no sense, kind of did, so... Thank you. I needed someone to listen to me”.

“Always the orders. You just need to fight again for a cab and I'll do enough to make sense the next time you decide to vent”. — he laughs, making me laugh along.

He pulls the backpack to his shoulder, and I lean over to see his face.

— “I'm Mark, by the way”. — “Jackson” — the brown-haired man and bright black eyes smiles at me and knocks on the door hard, making the car look more empty. — ‘Be well Mark. Passion always turns us upside down to get up on the right track afterwards. Be well.”

****

**Day 150**

Choi Youngjae’s pov

He’s soft lips twitched slowly against the already sweaty skin of my neck, causing me itching, plucking me low moans and eager. I squeeze he’s back hard when I feel he press he’s erection against mine, and I bite he exposed shoulder.

We had fought once more. This time — in fact, as in all the others — because of me, because I couldn't understand why we couldn't tell his family about us. Mark said: I want to take it easy, please. Jaebum agreed with him. Yugyeom too. _I don’t_. I didn't want to take it easy, not when my heart was inflated with love every time we were together, not when all that was going through my head was how beautiful we'd be in suits in front of a peace minister in the United States.

Then we quarreled — again — and I shouted — again — that he didn’t want me and that he should decide which path he would take from his life, because he was fed up with his uncertainties. But I didn't want to say any of it, I didn't want to be unfair, because at some point between my screams and my anger I know that Mark was right, that all the other things had gone too fast — our relationship, our first sex, the first time that we lunch with my mom — that we should step on the brakes and live one day at a time. I know that, but I'm so filled with the feeling of being in love, I couldn't control myself. I just couldn't stop wanting to be a part of his family once and for all — even though he lives by saying that his family is me and that I know myself well.

I’m really crazy, but luckily Mark loves me enough to love my madness and me insecurities that decides to show up once or twice a week. He loves me and so — thanks to that — we always made peace and promising that we would get better. Well, I promised. I promised and endeavored to keep my word.

So it was not suddenly that we made up, it took many hours locked in my room, talking about what we were doing wrong and how we could improve, how I could improve and how it could be less 'cold' in relation to our future.

It also took Jaebum to give me one more lecture about me being dating someone peaceful compared to my storm. And unlike the other times I wanted to yell at everyone and beg for life to be more just and give me just what I wanted so much, I took a deep breath and nodded, promising to remember the boy in the cafeteria more often, which never spoke and who liked to read free The old ones with their name drawn on their covers. 

And I was ready to step on the brakes and wait for him, to tie the butterflies in my stomach and gnaw my nails in order to distract the storm in my chest, which made me want everything to happen as soon as possible, and was already going crazy in the first 15min , until his expression seemed to darken and his voice shivered me the hair of the nape when inquiring of the sentence which I so loved. Except the sex, we can do it quickly... and hard.

“I love you” the sound of he’s voice bringing me back to the present, to he’s lips in mine and he’s desperate hands to rip me from my jeans. I smile, straightening her warm cheeks and kissing them then. “Don't ever freak out again, please. Don't make the smiley sunshine go away, because I love him so much and I want him so bad it hurts”.

“I'm not going to” I whispering, raising his hips and letting him get rid of he’s jeans for once. I didn't leave, not in the literal sense of the word. I went away from my essence, in my cries and in the lack of patience. From the beginning I always knew he was peaceful, quiet, too calm. I've seen him long enough to know whether Mark Tuan did everything in his time, so when I freaked out that I didn't understand him, I disappeared into madness and acted like a child. And I don't want to disappear anymore, I don't want to make him sad. I don't want to ruin us. 

I close my eyes, feeling he’s lips touching my thighs, which gives me the creeps and makes me want to hold on to he’s hair. I squeeze my fingers around the sheets and I twist. He doesn't do much ceremony, we've been torturing ourselves for a long time — it started at the dinner table, with Jaebum in our side, his calm expression and his foot rubbing slowly on my cock — then the minute his tongue quickly grazed me and his lips were they close around my glans I lost all my senses. 

I raise my hips of the bed, moaning and trying to keep my promise not to grab him by the hair as he was accustomed to do. I shake hands on the face. 

“Oh, my _heaven..._ ” I twist. He’s hand grabs my cock, massaging it quickly while his tongue licks me urgently. I want to grab him by the hair. My body and my mind work together, and I already feel the palms of my hands becoming damp. Mark had made me promise not to make any scandals — since the next-door neighbor had complained with Jaebum about the kind of thing we watched with the volume too high at night — and wouldn't pull his hair, because he had a headache. I was trying to keep the two promises, but the more her lips massaged me together with her hand, more I want to pull him by the hair and scream his name I had.

I pull the cover, bring it between my teeth and bite it hard. My hips are moving back and forth unconsciously, he’s mouth is still sliding on me, his lips suck me off and hot tongue rubs all over my extension. If he goes a little deeper, I can feel his throat. The foot of my tummy aches for the idea.

I close my legs around his head when his lips tighten my glans and he’s fingers my balls and I try not to sound so pornographic by moaning at the feeling that it causes me.

He kisses my thighs, slowly descending through them, his fingers rub my pre cum all over my penis, and when his tongue dances over my ring I forget the promise and grab hard in his hair, moaning because he’s wet mouth against me.

I involuntarily whine when his tongue moves away, but I wind up gasping surprised when one of his fingers slides into me.

The quick movements of his fingers inside me cause me a slight burning familiar my skin and even though I wish he would continue with it forever needed to feel it inside me.

So I'm not ashamed to beg, to wiggle against his fingers and ask him to fill me up. And Mark isn’t ashamed to say no to me.

“ _No?_ ” my voice sounds like a distant echo. His fingers move away, his hands drift away and the warm sensation of his presence cools, making me dizzy. “Really? No?” I ask louder, angrier. Mark shakes his head. “What do you mean **no**?” I try to lift my body, but before I can do that and scream he grabs my ankles and pulls me out of bed.

“Not in your bed” he panting, pulling all my weight up and putting me practically on hes shoulder. He hand spreads with force against my ass, making me scream and close my fingernails against his waist. “I want to fuck you in our special corner…” he’s voice sounds confusing to me. Maybe it's because all my blood is coming down to my head as he walks into the living room, where he puts me on the couch. 

“Hyung!” my cheeks burn the instant my mind takes me back to the first time we had sex. The fucking couch. “Jaebeomie made clear the fact that-“

“Jaebeomie... That nickname again” he’s cute accent and sawed-off teeth make my stomach sink. Mark rubs his tongue over his lips and grabs me by the back of the head, pulling me closer. “I really hate it when you call him that, Choi Youngjae” and before I can apologize, he lips shut me up. I feel like I'm going backwards.

The leather hurts my back, my boyfriend's tight teeth against my lower lip make me complain about the pain and all for when your lips leave mine and he’s hands close around my hip, forcing my body to turn around and my face reaching soft couch that Jaebum liked so much . I separate my lips, too anxious.

I close my fingers hard when I feel the blazing fast and unexpected form once again on my ass, which makes my legs tremble and move away. Another slap makes me grunt.

I laugh nervous, feeling the cold touch my skin when he pulls the bar of my blouse up, making her cover my head and leave me blind for a brief instant. When the piece comes out and falls on the floor, Mark's soft, warm hand squeezes my ass again, his legs move away from my legs a little more, and I clench my lips, feeling him positioning himself in my doorway.

My throat burns, like my eyes and every inch of me falls apart when I feel it fills me with strength. The way he’s moaning sounds, so uncontrolled and disconnected, it makes me feel hot against the light burning my soul.

The knuckles hurt, my knees too, but his presence upon me, his breathless breath against mine and the sound of the sofa caused by the friction of my body, his possessive hand clinging to my hair, pulling my head back and his dick sliding without in break or protection within me, makes every pain wonderful and welcome.

When Mark moves away and rubs his thumbs on my ass, opening it up against the lack of his dick inside me, I wait for his next move, which doesn't take long to come and pluck me a last moan. The five minutes between him walking away and massaging seem never to have existed when I feel his dick slipping back into me, with patience and slowness, as if to enjoy every second of the entrance to the path to my prostate.

After a few moments of listening to him try to control his breath, I felt empty and floating, as if he were floating in the high seas, with the sun on his face and the senses numb.

“Youngjae-ya...” his hoarse voice echoed against the calm tide in my ears, making me want to open my eyes. He tired laughter makes me try to smile. “You look exhausted”. I feel exhausted, I mean, but it's so good to keep quiet that I can't even move a muscle to ask him to take me to bed. He laughs. “Are you even awake?!”

“Yes...” the warm sensation against my face begins to fade when he picks me up in his lap, and quickly, she is occupied by the cozy warmth that spreads all over my body. Hes arms close around me, and his breath on my neck makes me smile. “I love you”.

And although I am striving to stay awake, to feel the "magic words" kiss my cheeks, his voice doesn’t reach my ears with the answer, and my mind turns off without my long-awaited I Love you too.

**Day 460**

Despite being exhausted from the pain in my chest and wanting to hear Yugyeom's voice asking me to come back, I can't stop my feet when they move quickly towards the blue building, which usually causes me a bad feeling at the bottom of the throat.

The students whisper and whisper, the white-haired professor yells at me to get the hell out of his classroom and Mark Tuan's brown eyes smile at me. “Why?” I ask before that all the courage I had managed to draw from the words of Jinyoung disappear from my body. “Why did you fuck him?” I cry making he’s eyes lose the brightness. “Why you hurt me like that? Why Mark?!”

“Youngjae...” as much as I was trying to hold on, hearing him inquire my name in such a sad way was like never having tried anything. The tears roll without me realize it and he hand closes on my arm hard when he pulls me out of the class.

We're walking quietly down the halls, hes hand won't let me go, and as much as I want to get away, I'm stupid enough to miss it. 

When we stopped, behind the building where we had seen it for the first time, and he’s hand moves away I feel how much my mind had regressed between the classroom and that walk. For a moment I had stopped crying, had forgotten that we were separated and had allowed myself to feel that warm feeling in my chest caused by the existence of Mark Tuan.

“I shouldn't have done that” my voice goes out in the bubble, hoarse, unrecognizable. Fuck, I’m an idiot. “I need to go home. I shouldn't have gone after you, I...”

“I met him at a bus stop. The hours were ticking, you wouldn't stop texting and I needed to go home” he says before I can turn around and run away. My heart stop too. “He got in a fight with me over a taxi”.

“Mark…”

“I didn't know Youngjae. I didn't know getting into a cab with a stranger would hurt you so much. I swear I didn't know what that decision was going to cause” he’s sad, red eyes stare at me. I turn my back, because I don't know how much longer my heart can keep beating if it falls into tears. I hate him so much. I hate him so much it makes me feel a little tight in the chest to see him cry. “I told him about us. About how things were going and all he did was say that things would be okay, that maybe we just needed to get back together so things would return to normal and...” I hear him laughing softly between hiccups “and we hit it off Youngjae, we got so good I thought _wow, that cab guy was right, we just needed to meet again_ ” I press my hands in my face, giving up fighting against my tears. “For a while I thought what he was talking about was me and you. I really thought” he sniffs. “but then I saw him again at the mall and felt like a garden was growing inside of me, where before there was only fucking black hole”. 

I was look for this because after him. I read he’s letter, I heard Jinyoung and I ran to him. It was I who asked to hear the reason and it was only I who felt the pain of the consequence of having sought it. I separate my lips to ask Mark to shut up, so he forgets my question and continues his happy life full of smiles with his new boyfriend, but when I face him, in tears, I lose any voice that I still possess. 

“Talk…”

“I tried to ignore it, I tried to pretend that it wasn't the feeling I had so longed to feel in my fucking life” Mark sobbing, taking his hands up to the blond hair. “Then one day you asked me to go to the café, to bring your favorite toast and I saw him again. I found him. He was at that record store that we both loved to go to, the one you used to hate at the beginning of our relationship” my heart hurt. It was my fault. I'm the one who sent him to the cab guy. I’m so stupid. “He was so, so… I don't know, so... Noisy” Mark Tuan laughs among the tears, loosening his hair and shaking his hands in a confused gesture. His feet move, bringing him closer. I can't believe it. I can't believe it was my fault, that he had seen the light on someone else, because I needed a coffee. Because he had asked him to go to the cafeteria at the wrong time, because he saw him right across the street. He saw him and he loved him without realizing it. It’s my fault.

“He was knocking down all the disks and as much as he was embarrassed, he was smiling and making Mr. Jung laugh at the situation. I didn't even realize that I had reached the store, that I was standing in the session of the Jazz records, in front of him and that I smiles because of his beautiful smile...” I hiccup, squeezing my stomach. “I didn't realize I was still thinking about how the sun lit up his face when the cab came out of that tunnel and his eyes looked perfect light brown” Mark finally admits that the moment that led him to his complete heart was the moment when mine was broken by his selfishness. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't realize when it happened, for not having him away, because now” he chokes and, unfortunately, I know what's coming. So I stop breathing. “…because now I love him and I hurt you. I'm sorry Youngjae-ya”. 

**Day 182**

**_Mark Tuan’s pov_**

He shone as if he were being embraced by a blue aura, which filled every dark corner inside my chest, which caused me a strange sense of lightness.

The scandalous sound of his laughter, the way his eyes looked tiny compared to his open lips in a funny smile brought me into a world where flowers sprang up everywhere. I smile, watching him knock down the disks one more time.

Looking at it was like looking at a violent sea after a storm. There was an unexplained calm in its waves colliding with the rocks, as if, as violent as it was, everything in it was inviting and calm enough to numb all human minds in its chaotic and provocative tune in blue. However beautiful it was, looking at him ached.

“It’s all right Jackson…” Mr. Jung laughed, helping him. “You don't have to apologize to me. These things are falling apart anyway. It's okay to knock them down one more time”.

“I really should pay more attention to where I walk” he laughed, biting he’s lips and bowing to the old man, who shook his hands to let it go. “I promise not to drop any more records, Mr. Jung” and even before he could put a bigger smile on his face because of his promise, the disks fell off the shelves, making me laugh.

The brown eyes — which were in a confused battle of disappointment and surprise — found me, standing in front of him, on the other side of the transfer of records.

The instant he’s eyes actually found mine my mind rolled away and my body numbed, leaving permanent just the weird feeling in my stomach. He was staring at me like he didn't know why he was there, like he was about to run or cry for help. And as much as I tried to apologize, I couldn't.

Maybe it's been a few hours, a few days or months — at least that's how it seemed to me — for Mr. Jung to inquire into my name, which brought my conscience back to the noisy reality of the vinyl record store.

“Oh, Mark. Did you come for that record you asked for the little Youngjae?” the mention of "the little Youngjae" sounded like a punch in my stomach and I wanted to cry about it. “He came in last week. I was going to call, but I ended up forgetting” Mr. Jung say, putting the disks in the boy's hands in front of him. “Come with me, I'll get it for you”.

“Thank you.” I could tell, but I couldn't move. He was still standing in the hall, staring at him like he couldn't see anything but him. His lips smiled. “ Hi.”

“Hi.” he repeated, nodding his head. “Are you following me?”

“What?!” I knew it was a joke, or at least I expected it to be, but I couldn't help but get scared. He’s laughter made me laugh. “That’s not funny” I grumbling, taking one of the disks off the shelf. “A friend lives around these parts and I came to get him coffee, because he couldn’t, because he was studying…” I say without thinking “and then I remembered the disks we had asked for and decided to come in. I swear I didn't see you.” It was a lie. 

“You know, you didn't need to explain yourself to me” the handsome smile man say, putting the discs in place. “hmm, I also live nearby”.

“Where?” I asked without thinking and his little eyes widened. “Ignore me, I ask confusing things when I'm nervous”.

“Do I make you nervous?” his voice, as low as it had come out, sounded velvety. 

“Oh, I didn't-I didn't-you didn't...” I bit my cheeks, embarrassed. 

“It’s all right” he laughed, putting the disks back on the shelf. “I know my beauty makes people nervous, I'm used to it. You'll get used to it too”.

I squint. His lips pull back at the corners, and we both fall into laughter.

“I'm Mark…”

“Yes I know” the sound of his laughter along with the fact that he remembered my name made me paralyze. It was a garden, which was growing inside of me... It was a flower garden and full of wind. The coffee would probably cool down. “How did it go with your boyfriend that day? Are you all right?!”

And like before, all the sounds seemed to fade away. I was in our favorite store — that at the beginning of our relationship had been the most hated store for him — he was holding his favorite coffee and his chocolate cookies because he liked to watch him eat like a four-year-old who could cry if he didn't have his cookies. I was waiting for Mr. Jung to bring the disc we had ordered to commemorate our anniversary, and yet, even with all the indications of his existence, I hadn’t remembered him.

I remembered the coffee getting cold, the cookies, the disc, but not his. Before I heard that boy with dark hair and eyes asking about my “boyfriend” I couldn't remember his existence. Maybe I'd never remember if I kept looking at that guy.

“Mark?”

“Yes…” I smile. “We talked as you suggested and we've been good ever since. Thanks for asking, Jackson.” I try to smile a little more.

Jackson's brown eyes face me serious, his head tumbles to the side and his smile seems to say something when his fingers hold his chin. I squint, I'm confused.

“Okay, I believe you” he say suddenly and returns to his normal position, upright and smiling. “Your face says _I've slept like a madman, thank God we're fine_ and so I believe you.” the sound of my laughter echoes through the store, and his is joined in a funny volume dispute. 

“All right, it was funny.” I say wiping my eyes. “If you-“ “Here it is!” Mr. Jung, damn Mr. Jung, yell. “It was in the boxes, I almost didn't find it alone. So Young has to start organizing these things.” he smiles, handing me the vinyl record in a nice bag with his logo on it. 

“Thank you Ahjusshi”. 

“Tell little Youngjae to come visit me more often, he's very much gone. This store's no fun without that boy around” the old man laughed, making me smile. It was true. The store looked a little more gray without the presence of Youngjae in it. Though, the gray looked very beautiful, it combined with Jackson and his dark hair. “Tell I miss him okay?”

“Okay, I’ll.” I smile, saying goodbye to the old man, who walks the short steps towards the counter. “I have to go.” I say to the man in front of me. “It’s was good to see you”. 

“Bye Mark.”

“Try not to knock down Mr. Jung's disks” I say feeling my body aches. “and don't break anything you can't afford...” Jackson smiles, I smile, and the door closes, breaking the numbing sensation of the waves over my fragile body. 

I sigh. I feel sad, tired and apathetic. The waves had stayed inside the store and the garden seemed to wither inside my chest, making me feel the black hole.

As much as I wanted to go back inside and pretend I needed another record, I couldn't do that. I have Youngjae. I have him and the feeling of the waves and flowers couldn’t hinder it, I could not let them get in the way, because I had the sun to warm me. 

“Mark?!” the hoarse voice between the loud sounds of cars and people made me stop. My mind was screaming that I wouldn’t turn around, so that my body would move back towards the apartment in the center, but the sensation in my chest sounded louder. It was only when I really turned around, that I saw him running towards me, crossing the street hastily with a bag in his hand. He was beautiful as a violent sea. “Are you busy right now?” he asked, looking at the cafeteria bag. “I thought it would be fun to have ice cream with that annoying guy who tried to steal my turn in the cab, as if it were a humanitarian feat.”

“Do you want to take me for ice cream because that will give you a chair in heaven?”

“Dude, I love the way you understand me.” Jackson laughed, punching me in the shoulder, which made me roll my eyes. “So, you want to help me get into heaven?”

“Uh…” I bring my saliva. “I just… Uh…” I have Youngjae, the sun that illuminates my surface and scratches the thick walls of my I have his beautiful smile and his voice that makes me want to keep him always around. I have him and I have this feeling of being dragged by violent waves that wet my insides, that bring a light to the dark corners even though it's so brutal and chaotic. I have a garden and flowers on my chest. “You know what? Yes, I have time right now so of course I'd love to have ice cream with you.”


	6. can i be him

**DAY 799**

When I met Mark Tuan for the first time he had a silent aura around he that embraced his whole body, this aura oozed to me as if I were being drawn.

The blond haired boy was playing basketball alone, his smile showed he didn't need anyone to be happy. Seeing him smiling that day I don’t know anything that I know now. That day I felt all the joy of him filling me up and I still didn't know how much I'd hurt myself because of it.

At that time I didn't know that it was empty.

I followed him with my eyes during long two months and I saw him laughing at something funny in his books, saw him sitting alone in the cafeteria, while people were talking happily with his countless friends and he had only the deep silence. And I thought I saw his soul from so far away.

I loved him from the moment we meet, when his lips smiled and he grabbed my hand with he’s warm temperature, when his eyes widened to see me take he cell phone and write down my number. Loved him.

It took just 58 days for my heart to stop whenever my feet take me towards the dining hall and my eyes saw him sitting in the same place. 58 days for your aura to take my body and seep into my soul.

At that time I thought that was the best feeling’ cause I saw him loving me. Because I was happy and full of life, because Mark Tuan filled me in when he let me see his gray love for me.

_I loved because I love_. At that time I had no idea that there was no love in his chest, that a black hole was slowly devouring him inside. I had no idea that my chest would hurt by missing him, I couldn't imagine that his heart's heart had never felt the same as mine felt for him. At that time he told me he would never leave me.

“Youngjae?” the soft voice echoes in my head. “They're calling your flight.” 

I raise my eyes, finding Alex’s happy face — he’s one of the people who will do lack in my life after that day. I smile, pressing my fingers on the plane ticket.

“Thanks for coming with me Alex.” I say, putting an end in our hug.

“Are you sure about this, Jae?” he’s blue eyes stare at me and I want them to tell me I'm being crazy, that should have remained there and follow my life as promised. I want them to tell me that I don't have to go back, but at the same time I don't want to. “You don’t need to go back to Korea if you don't want to” he smiles. “You can accept that space at the hospital.” 

“It would be great, wouldn't it? We are both working in the same place, we couldn't complain that we couldn't get time to be together.” I giggle without humor. Alex too. 

I do love to stay but I couldn't. Even if I wanted his eyes to beg me and his hoarse voice to ask me to keep my perfect life in the United States, I couldn't stay because I'd be lying if I said I was living a perfect life, that there are no cracks inside Me, that there was no hole in my chest that makes me miss my old life. I'd be lying if I said I was brave enough to poke my wound in order to make it heal faster.

One day, when everything was still more confusing and sore than it is now, an acquaintance told me that the pain of disappointment was necessary, that it was normal to want everything to end so that it would go away, so that there was no longer the feeling of emptiness in our breasts. He told me that some injuries needed more than simple bandages, that they need to be poked a few times for the bark to grow fast.

I believed his words, I took them for myself when I ran towards the blue building and took him out of his class, when I cried out of control behind the same building when I heard him say he loved another man.

And it hurt, it hurt so much that I felt like I was slowly dissolving inside myself, because I discovered that my wounds had been made by me, because without realizing it I pushed him to another. Because without realizing I took Mark Tuan towards his real heart.

So I ran. I ran away from the bruises, ran away from Korea, away from Mark and his beautiful smile in the hallway and thought that only the dressing would serve to help me, that Park Jinyoung was wrong, that I would not need to poke the wound if she were away too.

And now I'm here: 799 days later, with a return ticket in the hands after discovering that the bandage no longer had any effect — perhaps he had never done it — that the wounds were still open and bleeding. That I still felt filled by him.

“Sir, please fasten your seatbelt. We're going to take off in a few moments.” the woman in the blue suit smiled touching my shoulder, bringing me back to the surface.

After feeling the grip on my waist, I breathed deeply and put my hand in my jacket pocket, where I found the old red paper, hidden away too many years ago.

You once told me that the sun always appears after the storm.  
So, please, let the sun illuminate all the dark corners ‘cause you need this.

And, before I forget, nothing has changed. You will always be my first love. Will always be the first person in my life.

Youngjae... Sorry.

“I will...” I press the paper in my hands, kneading it once more, feeling my heart ache as if it had never stopped crying for those words. “I'm going to poke my wounds so the bark will grow faster this time, Jinyoung-ssi. This time I will.” 

**Day 234**

In a few days it will be new year. Most people will return to their hometowns, others will go out with friends for nightclubs or any place that has music and drink. The shops will close, the stations will be crowded with a few hundred people, the more traditional families are going to wear hanbok, some pass in white and others, especially the younger children, will look forward to enjoy the Tteokguk. And I'll be with Mark.

It's going to be our first new year together, and as much as the boy with the blond hair and the beautiful brown eyes says he doesn't care much about the celebrations, I'm going to make this the best new year of all time in his boring american life.

Jaebeom will spend the new year with us — he and his funny new pink-haired girlfriend Eun-Ah —, Yugyeom come to visit us the next day with her cousin, and perhaps Park Jinyoung, accept my invitation to appear at our party when we finish celebrating with his family.

Since Christmas had been fun and full of new promises, the arrival of the new year makes me happy, with butterflies in my stomach and a warm feeling in my hands. Perhaps because it is one of the most important celebrations, perhaps because I am also anxious to eat Tteokguk, or perhaps because I intend to renew my vows of love for the silent boy when everyone embraces and if they wish a great new year.

The truth is, no matter what the reason, I'm just happy for that warm feeling that fills me every time I think how lucky my life has been. I have the best friends in the world — in the midst of them, I want to force Park Jinyoung to be part of the list, instead of continuing so alone in the halls of college — I have a good family that always supports me and encourages me to be who I should be without being afraid of what people You can say it. And, among all, I have Mark, which makes my life make sense.

“Markie!” smile, watching him come towards. Mark is always with an expression upset in college, YuGyeom says that this is his way of showing charm. “I was looking for. I need to know if you still have that your playlist "songs that should be played up in burials" to play on new year's eve party.” I dance with the shoulders, grabbing him by the shirt sleeves.

“About that…” he sighs, making me squint. “I won't be able to spend the new year with you, Youngjae” his voice reaches my ears, but all I hear is BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH YOUNGJAE. “My mom is crazy, because I didn't spend Christmas with her, so they decided that the new year will be in the family.”

“WHAT?” I scream and then I feel the tug that he gives me. Mark drags me into a corner, and stares at me with your eyes. “Fuck what people will say about my scandals” say before he even think about reprimanding me. “I can't believe you're not going to spend the new year with me. We had plans.” I feel the tears arrive slowly.

“Youg-“

“You said that your mother didn't care about these celebrations. She thought it was a waste of time. You told me that, Mark.”

“I know what I said” the voice sweet and sad it packs, as well as his arms. I didn't want to cry, I know it's not his fault, that people often pass certain family celebrations, but was happy and full of plans. I couldn't believe all the feeling of joy I was feeling had been taken down. Even worse, I couldn't believe I was going to spend the new year away from him. “I wish I could spend with you, but she insisted, the whole family will be there. I couldn't say no to her.”

“So take me with you” I suggest backing away. “It's about time they've met me as your boyfriend and not as your friend. Take me along with you.”

“Choi Youngjae…” Mark sighs, pulling away from me. I bite his cheeks. “Do you really want me to introduce you as my boyfriend on new year's day? In the first new year in family here in Korea? With all my uncles unbiased?” he questions. YES, I WANT YOU TO DO THAT, EVEN WITH ALL THE PROBLEMS I want to scream, but I'm afraid to upset him even more. “I know we agreed to go along with their friends, but I really can't. And I don't want to present you this way, I want my mother is calm and a good time, I don't want her to ruin what we've got with your temper.”

“But-“

“I promise I will be back running to come back as soon as possible. It's only three days.”

I bite my cheeks, feeling my stomach hurt and my eyes sting. I want to scream, kick, throw myself on the ground and act as a child to have a little consideration, but I can't do any of that because I know his mother. Mine had also been upset when I said that I would spend the new year in Seoul, so I understand and that's why I don't do a scene worthy of an Oscar. 

I sigh, wiping my eyes. 

“You better bring me a pie when you go back” grumbling, making him laugh and pull me into his arms. Sink your face into your neck curve. “I'm serious.”

After making him laugh with my unusual request and laughing because of your laughter, I force myself to send a message to Jaebum stating that it's just going to be him, Eun-Ah, Yugyeom and his cousin, I, and maybe — just maybe — but Jinyoung on new year's day.

The teachers were already gathering the classes in the Auditorium when I arrived with Mark, he gave me a kiss on the cheek and went to his place, alongside their classmates on the left side. And I went toward the stage, where in a few moments I will join my class and read the poem I chose to close the course lessons Seokyeong theater. 

When all were seated, after classes do thanks and speeches, Mr. Lee announced my name into the microphone, which made my stomach tie a knot and my vision dark.

As the new year, I had prepared that poem with enthusiasm and affection. Was tested and passed in my mind countless times throughout the week, and even when the teacher questioned why introduce such a poem at school and made me have a breakdown, I couldn't feel it with my whole soul and look forward to the moment of re quote the poem in front of all the people who would be in the Auditorium, because it was not any reading, for me, it had meaning. To me that poem was a silent scream how much I loved him.

The background music is slowly extinguished the environment, everyone is in complete silence, the wind is the only one who made a distinct sound — as well as the beat of my heart.

“Take a Coke with you” I say, wishing that people don't listen to the echo of my heart rate running me into the microphone, for him. — “Is even better than a trip to San Sebastian, Irun, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayone or be sick in Travessa de Gracia in Barcelona…”

_Partly because in that orange shirt you seem a Saint Sebastian better and happier; partly because I love you._

Partly because you're so fond of yogurt; in part because of the fluorescent orange tulips against the white bark of the trees; in part by secret that comes to smile around people and statuary.

_It's hard when I'm with you believe that there is anything so stop, so solemn._

And at that moment, with my eyes teary Brown eyes fixed on him, I know he can hear my heart beating against my chest because of my love for him.

For a brief moment, I see him rubbing his fingers in his eyes. I smile, looking around for other people to remain quiet in their chairs, open ears and hearts probably filled by the name of the people they love.

“In the warm light of New York at 4 P.M we're coming and going from one side to the other as a tree breathing through the eyes of its nodes…” I don't need to look at the paper to know what I'm talking about, the words were written to me they were recorded in every centimeter of my soul from the moment I saw him for the first time. “And the exhibition of portraits seems to have no face, just ink.” 

_Suddenly you surprised that someone has gone to the trouble of painting them._

I look at you and I prefer by far to look for it than all the pictures of the world, except, perhaps, sometimes the Polish Knight anyway is at the Frick, where thanks to God you never were, so that I can go along with you the first time.

And that you move so pretty, more or less takes care of futurism, as well as at home I never think in Nude Descending the staircase or in an essay in a drawing by Leonardo or Michelangelo, who used to dazzle me.

_Suddenly, before I know it and can complete the poem, the Auditorium door closes with a loud sound, cutting all the hearts of that place, and make their owners look back and whispering inaudible things to my ears dulled._

Suddenly, as the beginning of that poem and the strong beats of my heart gone mad by your love, you, Mark Tuan, walks towards the door and all I feel, everything I don't want to feel, is that perhaps you won't be back ever again.

_And what's the point of the Impressionists such research, when they never found the right person to be around a tree when the Sun is down, or for that matter Marino Marini who did not choose the rider as well as the horse. I think they all ceased to have a wonderful experience, that I'm not going to waste, so I'm telling you…_

**DAY 140**

If I could choose the best moments of my life to put them in frames, I definitely would choose the moments I shared with Mark Tuan.

We were together for such a short time — if we compare to my other relationships, of course — but still, even if we didn't have years of dating, but we had spent a good deal of time together. These moments you'd like to perpetuate in beautiful and colorful pictures to put on my comfortable and white walls. 

I would like to perpetuate the huge poster in the dining hall of the College, the day I saw him behind the blue building, I would also like to capture the day we kissed for the first time. And most of all, I would like to be able to register your pretty picture lying on my bed. 

“Do you think we will be together in ten years? — I ask, making him open his eyes. I bite your lips, hoping his voice hit my ears but Mark didn't say anything, he just smiles and smooth my cheeks.” 

Sigh, closing my eyes, when your touch down on my chin and slides slowly until my collarbone naked and sweaty. Not the answer I was expecting, but it was a good feeling, warm and creepy all over my skin. 

“What you want to do in 10 years?” your twisted question makes me roll my eyes behind heavy eyelids. You want to get married and have children?” 

“First, I want to go to Africa on a voluntary mission. I want to take care of children who need care, bring music to their lives and make them smile even when things are difficult.” I smile, happy. “Yes, that's the first thing I want to do in 10 years.”

“After marry?”

“No, I don't want to get married” I really, grumbling because I really don't want to get married. “but I want to have kids. Two kids.”p> “Two children?” Mark laughed, passing his fingers over my shoulder. “What else?”

“You're going to laugh when I say…” I whispering, biting my cheeks. Mark’s whispers back, telling me no, that he’ll not laugh, and I sigh. “Ah, I want to live in the United States, because I want my children to have an american education”. 

“What do you mean?” he asks with a serious voice. I raise my head and gaze “that” look, hoping that only this suffices for him to understand. But he doesn't understand. He just keeps staring at me waiting for an answer. I grasp. “Talk, Jae, what do you mean?”

“Aish hyung, sometimes you're so slow.” I sigh, hiding my face in his chest. His laughter makes my heart slowly warm. “I want my children to have an American education’ cause that's how you were raised, Mark...” 

“So you want to go to Africa on a voluntary mission and you want to have kids with me?”

“Don't make me answer this.” I whine, ashamed. I had made those plans alone, with my chest flooded with love and hope for a long-lasting future next to the boy with blond hair and beautiful smile. I never stopped to think about what **he** wanted.

He rubs his hands on my neck, and his low laughter echoes in every corner of my mind, causing a grip on my stomach to prevent me from breathing. 

I raise my head, ready to force him to forget what I said, when his smile shuts me up. 

“Okay…” Mark Tuan say all smiley. My heart literally stop beating. “We're going to have two kids.”

**Day 400**

Sometimes I think people can hear my heart cry. When I’m in complete silence — what is now constant —, they look at me with their sad eyes and it makes me want to cover my body with anti-noise foams, so that no one else can hear the scary echo that emanates from me, because then I won't have to hold the crying I still keep.

Which means to say that I'm always alone now, I hardly ever talk to people and I hardly ever sit in front of the class like before. Jaebum calls me ridiculous, says no one can hear anyone's heart, but it is not as it seems when people give me those looks that say "sorry for your broken heart, he seems so sad to cry like that, poor Choi Youngjae”.

That morning, as in all the others, I was striving not to pay attention to the whispering and people staring at me in the theater room, as I was also striving not to have them go to the house of the fucking with their feathers and their fallen expressions, when the teacher's loud voice echoed all over the room, making everyone shut up quickly. 

It was only then that my eyes found the girl huddled in a white chair, crying to hear the teacher complain, once again, of her inability to accompany the rest of the class in the dynamics that he passed in the classroom. It was only then that I saw her tears.

I had seen her before in the room, if I’m not mistaken, her name is Kim Chaewon, she’s new and sh’s always getting looks of the teacher's reproach. I'd seen her before, but I never really looked at her, and now, seeing her huddled up in the chair, I feel like I'm having a bypass experience, because seeing her so withered and weeping was like seeing me when there were no people around to forbid me from crying. Desperately.

The teacher shouts a few more harsh words, and tells her to leave her class. But it's only when the door slams behind me that I realize I'm running after the girl with the black hair and the red eyes for the sad tears. 

“Are you okay, Chaewon-ssi?” I’m not in control of my body, so I also get scared when I say those words. She look at me and I take a step back. “Oh, I'm sorry, I... Oh, I'm Youngjae, we do some classes together and...” I point to the room a few meters from where we were. “I saw you leaving, and I thought you could…”

“Leave me alone…” the girl grumbles, wiping her face. “I don't need more people telling me that I’m not good enough. I know very well that I’m not able to follow the class and that I’m harming the class, so leave me alone.” 

“I don't think you're harming the class…” I say without thinking. ‘To be honest, the class is crap. People are terrible and they live by blaming people who think they're weaker, so I don't think it's your fault. I think the professor is trash and everyone in that class should go to they fucking house because they're all shit.”

The girl wrinkles and behind the tears she laughs at my disgusted face when I talking about my drama class. Some time ago I tolerated them, thought them idiots, but tolerated them. Now I can't stay in the same room without wanting to murdering someone.

“… I think so, but I'm not helping much. In a few months we'll have that important piece and yet I still spoil it for everyone!” she sighs and I sit by her side, allowing me to rub the sleeve of her coat over her full red cheeks. The girl backs up a little, eye-popping, but doesn't yell at me or tells me to stop, so I just keep wiping her face in deep silence.

“Let's go back to class, Chaewon-ssi” I try to make the sound of my heart protrude from the sound of my falsely happy voice. The girl separates her lips and for a moment I think I see her hesitate. “I'm going to help you and we're going to make the best play of all this college crap. That's what we're going to do. So, come on, let's go back to the class.

And we got the pious looks when we went back to the class’ cause I was the kid who had been ridiculously dumped by her boyfriend and she was the girl who didn't do anything right.

“Youngjae-ssi...” her sweet voice calls me, and her smile can almost warm my heart, because it is loaded with a funny and almost contagious joy. I see her bite her cheeks and look at her hands. “Thanks… Thank you for coming after me.” 

I smile, sad. I hadn't done much, I just did what I wanted Mark to do to me. I just did what he couldn't do for me. What he didn't want to do.

**Day 800**

It had been 800 days since the first day I saw Mark Tuan, 800 days since my heart had fallen in love for the second time, 423 days since he had broken up for the third time in all my sad existence. 

I found out about the black hole in the blond boy's chest the day 337, when his eyes couldn't look me in my eyes and his voice told me he was sorry. 423 days since that black hole had been filled by flowers, by another person.

It had been a long time since the last time we were in front of each other, and now, seeing him from afar in our favorite record store, I feel like all this time meant nothing close to the hole that still existed in my chest because of him. 

I had returned to Korea on the day 799, after my graduation and my refusal to new jobs, after Alex, my roommate, had mentioned Yugyeom’s name and have made me act like a teenager by typing my the name of ex on Facebook.

And now, after having passed a thousand times what I would say – why I had come back to this country, why it was important for me to find him one last time – didn’t know what to do but to stand looking at him from afar with his beautiful smile. 

Maybe that's why I waited for him to go across the street and into to our favorite record store, in the store that I hated so much and learned to like because of the boy who made my heart float inside my chest. Maybe it was because I was anxious and nervous and too confused that I didn't realize when I saw him standing in sector C with a record in his hand.

My heart hurt. If there were more people in the store, they could hear the crying echoing from my chest as the other students heard when I was still in college. He heard it.

His body moved slowly to the sound of a beautiful song that echoed from the speakers, his head rose and he turned, facing the petrified Youngjae in front of him.

_Maybe he didn't recognize me._ That's what I thought. Maybe he's pretending he doesn't know who I am. It was what I preferred to receive from the man standing in front of me, but contrary to what I expected or wanted, he recognized me. He smiled at me and came towards me. 

“Youngjae-ssi...” his voice, his smiling eyes, his red lips, his lightness and passionate expression made my heart shatter into my chest. That was the fucking fourth time he was broken. “I didn't know you were back.” 

And I wanted to tell him something. I wanted to tell him about seeing the publication on Facebook, about giving up my job for feeling like I needed to come home and poke my wounds like Park Jinyoung had asked me to do a few years ago. I wanted to be able to tell him about how my chest still ached on the date that one day it had been special to me and the blond-haired boy, I meant I don't feel angry when he smiles like that. 

_“Jack, Jack, Jack…_ ” The euphoric and happy voice sounds down the aisle, it seems to spread all over the corners until it gets to my skin, causing me goosebumps. I hold my breath and at the same instant, the black-haired girl clings to the short legs of Jackson Wang, the cause of the flowers that cost me my relationship with Mark Tuan. “Carry me, carry me Jack, I want to get high to get that record!” she says, pointing to the bookshelf.

Maybe I shouldn't have crossed the street when I saw the blond boy leaving the store, maybe I shouldn't have gone back to Korea. Maybe I'm turning purple from lack of oxygen. 

The girl clinging to the boy's legs must be three years old, she has deep black hair, dark eyes and small ones like Jackson's, and her smiles are so similar.

“She’s yours?” my voice, which was no longer as confident as a few hours ago while insisting that Jaebum not worry, sounds making him raise his head. The girl laughs. “She's your daughter with…” I bring my saliva and I squeeze my fingers into the mesh of my t-shirt. “With Mark?”

Jackson's black eyes smiled at me, not as if they were wanting to offend me, but as if they were trying to support me and remind me of something that had been forgotten. 

“Anyo Youngjae-ssi…” the smiley boy responds, catching the girl in his lap. She looks at me and her eyes make me see the brown-haired boy reflected in them and smiles, trying to grab the brooch attached to my jacket. Jackson Wang laughs, slowly pushing her away and kissing her cheek with affection, with all that aura of love that he exudes. “This is Aimee, my niece.” the answer sustains me with the same caution that he’s arms seem to support little Aimee. 

“Oh he’s uncle Mark sunshine...?" maybe it was nice to have crossed the street and entered that old record store, maybe it was nice to have seen him with that little girl, who now whispers my old nickname as if she knew me. “From the music of the computer!”

_Uncle Mark sunshine_. It made me smile. “Yes monkey…” Jackson smiles at me. “That's him. The boy with pretty voice you like to listen to before you go to sleep.” as much as my heart is making me deaf, the soft, happy voice of the dark-haired boy comes to me, which makes me face him, confused with his beautiful smile and his sincerity as clear as the sky. And in that instant I realize, that if I wasn't broken in the worst possible way, that smile could have made flowers grow inside of me. “So come on, say hi to uncle Mark's sunshine, Aimee.” 

**Day 1450**

“Jaebeom hyung?”

“Have you heard?” his voice sounds deep and rough. I separate my lips and I raise my hands, ready to check he’s temperature. He was sick when I left house. “Youngjae!” JB shouts my name, beating my hand, making me face it ugly. “They are getting married.”

Jaebum was feverish when I left him in the morning, he had red eyes and skin too hot, I gave him a painkiller and put him to sleep. Now, standing in front of me with a beige card on his hands, he looked healthy again, and I was the one who was burning.

I grab the card from his hands, feeling something that I believed had drained out of me hammering into my chest, causing me shortness of breath. 

If we could have the souls torn as papers, I would be in the world as an empty shell, for mine - my poor soul among the 40% of drug addicts still in love - was, after a long time, starting in two.

Jaebum screams my name when I finally reach the doorknob and walk out the door, he cries for me to stop, so I think and remind me that I'm cured, but it's impossible. 

It's impossible because I wasn't cured. I know that, just as I know that life was complicated, and that real people don't always heal completely over time. 

When people love, they go crazy. They lose their tempers and their lives, most of the time, they sound like a roller coaster. For a while I was like this. 

I was part of the lovers, of those who were blind and wished strongly to be with the loved ones for the rest of their lives, of those who liked more of the other than of themselves. Yes, unfortunately I was part of that group, and unfortunately, I was in it alone.

It's been four years since my recovery. It's been four years since he’s voices were heard by the neighbors from the lower floors, since he wept at the foot of my trimming door and said it was too tiring, that it was too tiring to love me. 

It's been a long time since I felt that way, and the lack of that feeling allowed me to smile, allowed me to live and feel healed as people hoped. For a while I thought I was no longer part of the group of sad madmen for unmatched love, but I was still in it. Not as before, as someone desperate for love, as a lifeless and aimless person because of my broken heart, but as someone who hadn't poked his wound. I was in the group of crazy lovers, because I had not put an end to the stupid love story of Choi Youngjae and Mark Tuan.

My life was good. Compared to the wreckage they had left, she was incredibly good and happy. I was happy until a few minutes ago, before entering my old apartment full of memories that wouldn’t make me cry anymore and find Jaebum with that damn invitation in the hands. I was happy before I realized I was still carrying it inside me.

He was still there, that's what made me run away, his suffocating presence, and the fact that we didn't shut things down as they should have been shut down. That's why I ran.

Because I still have the wounds, I still have the bandages... I still have the old red card hidden in the bottom of my sock drawer, and I still don't have the end point of our story.

While I run between people and hear them shouting, I feel like I'm disappearing inside me, as if something was sucking up everything else that still existed in my life. Like you're sucking up all the last good memories. 

**Day 381**

If my parents could save me from the world and the things that happen to him, they would save me. They would put me in a place high enough that nothing could reach me, and then nothing in this world would bring me down or make me cry. If they could, they would have warned me that — even if they put me on top of the highest mountain in the world — nothing would be enough to protect me from a broken heart, that nothing would stop Mark Tuan.

It was 381 day since the first time I saw the boy with the blond hair, and unlike the light that seemed to emanate from him, this time all he could see was darkness.

“You can take all your stuff and get out of my life.” I complain, trying to sound as rude as when I was rehearsing in front of the mirror. When Mark called Jaebum, reporting that he was outside our building, I ran to dry my tears. 

I wouldn’t give him the taste of seeing me weak, wouldn’t allow me to cry in front of him and make another scandal. I've done enough since I saw you at that damn festival. So my cold expression and my intended lips are the result of all the effort I'm making not to fall into tears. -I don't want anything that's yours in my house. Nothing. 

“Youngjae-ah...” Mark's hoarse voice surrounds me, gives me the creeps, and pulls me hard for a few days ago when things were still normal. I bite my cheeks and face my feet in the stupid attempt to hide the fact that I don't even have the strength to pass myself off as strong.”I just wanted to…”

“What?” I snapped, raising my head. The tears don’t take long to fall and my heart doesn’t delay pulsing strong in his sad attempt at suicide. “What do you want? Uh?” he raises his eyebrows. Jaebum, who was in his room, appears in the hallway, and I feel like running into his arms and asking him to force Mark to leave our house. “What, Mark?!”

I know that we are silent, I know that if we could pay attention to something other than our hearts, we could hear the sound of our breaths, but everything was out of place, our breasts ached and even if there were no voices, everything seemed to be screaming.

Mark Tuan's dark, red eyes stare at me, confused and lost in his empty mind. Please, say something, explain to me how we got here. That's what I want to scream, that's what I need to know, but I can't move. I can't even control myself when he passes by me, and walks towards my room, where his things were. 

My body weakens, my knees tremble, but I simply follow him, furious and ready to drag him out by the hair, when I see him open the door of my room and walk to the bed, where one day we lie down until 3:00 p.m. on a hot Monday morning.

_What do you do you're doing to us?_ Maybe I said, I'm not sure, but there was no answer, so maybe I just thought. _Why don't you just kneel down and ask me for forgiveness? Why don't you just tell me why you cheated on me like that?_ The questions I've been asking in my dreams make my heart throb, and the lack of answers rips me to tears that are thick and sad. Those tears that seem to burn my face until they slowly fall into the soft carpet under my bare feet.

“I'm so sorry…” he’s voice scares me. When he turns to me, he has the box that I put his things in, and his eyes are even redder. “I'm sorry.”

“You sorry you betrayed me…” I giggle. “Or are you sorry you got caught?”

“I'm sorry for didn't love you as I should have.” 

I wish my parents could protect me. I wanted them to put me on top of the highest mountain in the world, so nothing bad could happen to me. I wish I wasn't feeling all that pain, I didn't want to be pulled into the dark abyss caused by that boy, who one day made butterflies fly in my stomach. I didn't want to be broke because of him.

My eyes followed his muddy glimpse as if they were seeing him for the first time, as when I perceived him in the faculty cafeteria, and as a magnet being attracted, my arms got involved in his waist, my face rubbed against his warm back and my Heart fell asleep for an instant — like when he said he loved me for the first time.

Why?” I hiccup, hiding my face. “Why Mark? We were happy.” 

“No, you were happy!” his voice doesn't sound nasty, it's not like it was said to hurt me, but it hurts. And I hate him for it. I hate his blonde hair, I hate his smell, his laughter, his eyes, his skin. I hate the way he left me, I hate the fact that my heart doesn't understand what's going on, I hate it because I love him. I walk away. 

I know deep down you know that too…” his body turns and our eyes collide, like the first time he looked me back in the cafeteria. “I was so confident that making you happy was enough, that we would be in the United States ten years from now, with our two children and that everything would make sense, because you would be happy. I really believed that would be enough” his voice breaks, and with it, my heart. “but it's not. It's not enough, because I want to be happy too. I never thought that wanting to be happy could hurt you, I didn't want that, you have to believe me, because it's the truth…”

I laugh. 

“I didn't mean to hurt you.” he sighs, squeezing his fingers around the box. “I want you to know that it's not his fault, it's my fault. It was I who caused all this, I was the one who hurt your heart, because I couldn't go on living without even trying. And I tried.

“Look where you got us, huh?” I giggle behind me tears. “Look at how we're doing, well... For how I am. You left me in the shit, and why?!” 

“Because I was tired of the damn emptiness on my chest!” he screams, hugging the box with more force, and lowering his head. Eye-popping. “Because I'm not the only person who's going to make you happy, and we all know it, but he's definitely the one who made me feel like...” Mark for, but not because it has nothing to say, but because it has a lot to talk about the boy with black hair and beautiful smile. “Like I'm in one piece.”

“Shut your mouth!” Screaming, pushing it. “Shut the fuck up.” I cry. “Go away.”

His eyes startled and flooded in tears stare at me. I want to punch him, I want to make something in him hurt as much as my heart aches, I want to make him beg God for it to stop. And I punch him, right in the middle of his face, over his tears.

Jaebum, who was probably struggling to stay out of the fight, enters to the room, and his eyes tell me what I already know, that he had crossed the line. He was crazy.

“It was tiring” Mark whines, as if to speak. “It was too tiring to love you Youngjae, because only you were happy. And I was dying inside, alone.” 

“Get out!” Jaebum screams, hugging me hard when my crying starts to sound louder than usual. Your hands hold me against your body, and my eyesight darkens. 

I just know that he's leaving, because I listen when the box is fixed, and things in it make noises that cut my skin. 

“I said I would never leave you...” I stop a few feet from the door, where Mark lies, with his back to me. Please no. I whisper When I finally stop running, I realize how far I could get before my lungs started begging for oxygen. Panting, I strive to walk a little more.

It was Jaebum who discovered that Mark Tuan and Jackson Wang lived a few blocks from us, he was the one who saw them coming out of the huge building with beautiful windows holding hands, happy. 

And he was also the one who insisted that I never try to find the building, but I was the one who lied and rode a bike through the blocks until I found the beautiful window building.

A few meters to the entrance of the concrete tangle, my heart beats violently in my chest and I have no idea what I'm going to say when the elevator stops on your floor and the front door opens. I don't even know if I have the right to have a final point.

I know I'm crying because I feel some tears running down my jaw and falling off, leaving a cold feeling on my skin. And I also know that I'm numbed by your smile.

He was right there, in front of me, with a nice smile on his face and his arms occupied with huge white boxes stamped under the name "Arden & Bora". My heart stop.

The woman with hair as black as yours comes down from the cab, her voice is loud enough that I can hear her say that Miss Arden had done an amazing job with the suits. 

Jackson Wang, who smiles with the boxes of Arden and Bora in his arms - which was nothing less than one of the most famous companies of tailoring for weddings - settled for the woman, and what that simple act makes me feel is indescribable. 

It's none of the feelings I was expecting to feel — anger, anguish, the will to die. On the contrary, the only thing I felt seeing him smile so happy was empathy. I understood him — of course there was a slight sense of envy, even sadness — he understood what it was like to be in love with someone, as it was to be happy to have everything that I wanted, because I was him. I was in love, I was happy, because I had Mark. Which is now his. 

They were going to get married. The box in his hands proved that the ticket was not just a chat, the bag from the center festive cake shop in the woman's hand was not a joke. They were going to get married.

Mark Tuan would marry Jackson Wang, and I'd just be the guy who made them stick together. 

Before I can figure it out, a girl yells at me. She had knocked on my shoulder because I was disturbing the passage, and she needed to get to the bus in time, and Jackson had seen me there, standing next to the place where he lived with my ex-boyfriend. 

“Youngjae-ssi?” his voice calls me, making me have the same feeling of flowers growing by my skin that had felt a long time ago, when we met at that record store, and the little black-haired girl told me how much your uncle Jackson loved your uncle Mark. , and how much she liked my voice, because it was listening to her that she used to sleep since she had met the blond-haired boy. Run. Without thinking of the flowers or the final point, without clinging to the sadness and the tingling sensation of joy growing in the bottom of my stomach, without stopping to check if I'm going the right way. I just run away. “Youngjae!”


	7. the end of our future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day I saw him, I wished that our lives were linked forever. He was playing basketball, shirtless, in silence behind the blue building. He looked like a work of art. 
> 
> The last time I saw him, he was screaming he loved another. And incredibly, Mark Tuan was still looking like a work of art, but this time, carved in chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end  
> hope you like it

**Day 377**

I always liked the beginning of the year, everything looks new, refreshing and full of life. I like how snow, which — unfortunately doesn't always fall as in American films — usually starts in December, seems different and renewed when the calendar jumps to the first of January. I also like how people seem happier, how they start their years with their promises that are not always fulfilled until the last day of the year, but that never cease to be done.

And I like the festivals. How the streets are white and the sky is gray, how the lights rise in the shopping centers and people close the small streets to present pieces about ancient legends or just to eat with their families. 

I like that Jaebum keep our traditions, to go to the center to see the children running in the park that is always installed after the three days of celebrations end of Ano2. I really like everything we do at the beginning of the year, but I would especially like to be able to enjoy this feeling of renewal with Mark and his beautiful smile. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t accompanied by his smile that the beginning of the year seemed so normal, opaque in the midst of all that perfect white snow.

“Youngjae?” Jaebum hyung pulls me back into the present, making me see the great package of cotton candy and his hands. “Eat.”

“Anyo!” I grumbling, moving his hand away. His dark eyes are all over me, brave for my tantrum. “Do you want to see me fat before May, hyung?”

“Fat? You?!” Jaebum huffs, wagging the cotton towards me. “Stop fooling, you love cotton candy” he complains, and I keep away his insistent hand. “Ya!” JB yells, making me bite my cheeks. “I've spent practically a fortune on this cotton candy, Youngjae, you have to eat it.”

“Did I ask you to buy something?” I clench my eyes, cross my arms. “I don't think so, right? Unless you have read my mind and somewhere, in my subconscious fat, you heard: I want a cotton candy, hyung buy a cotton candy” I fake complain, beating in her hand, when she returns to pass the package too close to me.

“Aish” Jaebum tread hard, making me laugh. “I've spent a fortune to make you happy and you just make a case for my cotton candy.” His say with low voice, which makes me laugh even more. “All I wanted to do was make you smile, but look what I get, a slap and an ugly face”. he asks, shaking his head. “You were more fun before, Youngjae, you ate the cotton candy I bought without-“ 

“Oh for God’s sake Jaebum, okay! I’ll eat that damn cotton candy” I complain too loudly, which causes a lady to squeeze her eyes and swear something inaudible and JB smile fun for having beaten me with his cheap street theater. 

“I knew you couldn't resist.” he shakes his shoulders when I take the cotton from his hands and shoots a minimum piece of pink sugar. “Who resists cotton candy purchased by Lim beautiful Jaebeom?” my best friend mocks himself, shaking his hands and opening a beautiful smile on his face. I roll my eyes. “That's right dear, no one resists my pampering. Not even you, you being all riled up because the boyfriend couldn't leave the house to come for a walk.” 

I called Mark after the holidays — Yugyeom called me a possessive boyfriend, because that was the fifth time I left a message upset for him — and when I finally got the answer, his hoarse sick voice told me that unfortunately we couldn't see each other for a couple of days’ cause he’s really sick. I tried to get him to let me go to his house, even said he would introduce me as his friend — since it's how his family knows me — but he dismissed it, said the doctor asked him not to make contact with many people, because his immunity was low and everything could get worst. 

I guess I don't have to say I was worried about him, that if I wasn't with Yugyeom around I would have cried myself to sleep. That was three days ago.

Now, even with his voice sounding healthy, Mark couldn't come to see me. When I called him, it was his mother who answered and said that the boy with the cute smile, my boyfriend who was being termed as "college friend" was too busy with his cousins. 

That day he called me and I was upset, because again I heard his mother wanted him with his family for at least another five days. And I'd be alone.

“I still can't believe he didn't come.” I sigh, eating a big chunk of cotton. Jaebeom’ smile drop for his face. “I know how moms are, you know how my mom gets when I don't go to Mokpo, yours doesn't even talk, but it cost him to tell her it was important?” I bite my cheeks, feeling the strange feeling born in the back of my throat again. 

Unwittingly, I squeeze my arm around my stomach and I feel my heart quicken. It's the same feeling I felt at the end of the year when I finished reading my favorite poem and saw him leaving the auditorium without looking back. It was a sad, gray feeling that seemed to be eating me inside.

“… So don't think about it too much, Youngjae.” Jaebum’s voice as soft and his hands clasp my shoulders. He was close, very close to me. 

“Argh, let's go on that toy you like, the one that scares you.” I feel my hairs creeping.

“But you can’t get scare. And you don’t even like that toy.”

“Oh don’t you now? I made a new year's promise that I would face all my fears and go on high and adrenaline-filled toys with my best friend." 

“Geez, you love me so fucking muck Jae Jae” 

“Right?!” I giggle. “Now let's go before I change my mind and run away desperate for these cold streets.” 

And the toy was really scary. So scary that I thought I passed out three times — but I was just in shock, a shock so strong that it made my heart look dead — so scary. Jaebum had had a lot of fun.

He laughed all the time, let me squeeze him, bite him and yell at his ear, but he didn’t stop laughing and find everything very amusing. Even when a grotesque man with blood dripping from all sides startled him, he laughed.

We were in churro tent when I saw him. He had a beautiful smile, tight eyes and a blonde hair darker than usual thrown back. And he was beautiful, beautiful as a sunny day, like perfect paintings in galleries.

My first action was to hit Jaebum's shoulder, so he could see him as handsome and smiling as I saw him. Soon after his eyes found the boy in the crowd, it was my feet that moved, making me take heavy steps towards him, stop me before even being at a reasonable distance for a kiss, because my eyes, as well as those of Jaebum , they were wide-eyed and my mind was confused. Then my heart slowly died on my chest. 

I still remember the first time I saw him in college on a hot day. He’s playing basketball behind the blue building. He had the same smile as now, a smile that said "look at me, I’m the happiest person in the world, I don’t need anything else’ cause I’m complete and all my dark corners are illuminated". 

He smiled, smiled so much that his face seemed fragile, as if he could break at any moment, as if he preferred to leave to smile at the next guy.

Because that was the reason for his smile and his aura so complete and happy, the black-haired man and smile as pretty as his grabbing his hand slowly, landing his forehead against his elbow, whispering something that tore him a little smile and raising his face to leave a quick and affectionate kiss on his lips.

And as I remembered the first day I saw him, while he was kissing another guy and straightening his face, he saw me for the first time on that cold night. 

Maybe seeing me was as quick as having fallen in love with me. Perhaps it had been because of soap bubbles falling on his face, drawing his attention to something brighter and more full of life, something he seemed to love, because the smiley face and complete faded slowly, as his love.

And it all makes sense. The day his smile stopped shining for me was the same day my coffee got cold in the beige bag. The day he looked me in the eye and said he couldn’t spend New Year with me. When he left the auditorium in the last verses of my poem, in the last stanzas of my love for him.

_I think they've all stopped having a wonderful experience, which I'm not going to waste, so I'm telling you..._

“Youngjae...” his voice should cause me smiles, I should drag myself from Earth and take me out of orbit, cause me itching and remind me of the good nights in my bed and the hot sofa in the living room. But the only thing his voice caused me on that cold early-year night was a deep pain in the chest, as if something was being introduced slowly inside me, right over my heart. 

“No, no, no, please…” I whine, feeling his hands grabbing me by the wrist before I can stop by the turnstiles that prevented me from getting to the nearest taxi. I close my eyes, shaking my head. “No, no, no” I repeat, pushing away the frightening sound of his sad voice in my ears. 

“Youngjae, please stop.” Mark Tuan didn’t want to be saying my name, I could hear it in he’s deep tone that he didn’t intend to be sounding as lost as my head rolling between the fun laughs of Jaebum in his favorite toy and the suffocating image of my boyfriend kissing another person.

I didn't even want to be in this place. I didn't want to go on that stupid toy, I didn't want to eat cotton, I didn't want to laugh and leave home, because if I hadn't followed those steps, I wouldn't have seen them and my heart wouldn't have been hurting. 

“Youngjae...!” Jaebum was there, his voice, sad and worried, makes me open my eyes, frightened by how real that nightmare seems to be. “Mark... I think-“ 

“Was it him?” my voice comes out so loud, so different from what I remember that my hairs creep up and my throat art. Mark squeezes my wrists. “He's the one who made you leave the auditorium, wasn't he?” I hiccup. Mark didn’t say anything. “You love him. Oh my god.”

“Youngjae-ya...” 

“I saw Mark. I saw how you were lit before you realized me, before I had all your happiness stolen from you because of my existence across the street.” I yell. “Is like that I look like when I'm around you?” I giggle humorless behind my tears. “Is that what all the people in love look like, Mark? Like they emanate from, I don't know, an aura strong enough to attract all eyes to you? Uh?” my head huts. 

“Youn-”

“Is that what I look like when I look at him, hyung?” I ask my best friend, who has so confused. 

Yes, that's how I looked. I didn't need anyone's answer because every time I looked in the mirror I could see that incredibly beautiful, glowing aura around me, as if having Mark by my side amplified some good feeling inside of me, as if it spread light to every corner In order to reach all the hearts close to us. It was like he looked next to the boy with the black hair.

“Why did you do this to us, Markie?” I crying, putting your hands on your face. Jaebum whispers my name and my chest hurts, because the true is: I don't want to hear it. “Why?!” I screaming, shaking hands, going towards him, grabbing him by his shoulders. “Are you such a scumbag that you can't keep your damn dick in your pants? Our fucks aren’t good enough to you?”

But he say nothing. 

He didn't even look me in my eye.

We're in the middle of the street, people are looking at us but all I can assimilate from that whole situation is the fact that my heart aches and Mark has nothing to say. He's quiet. It always has been. It was confusing how peaceful he could be, how much his eyes sounded sincere. 

Yugyeom used to call him the marble prince, because he was always silent, looking at me with a beautiful smile on his face. Because he seemed motionless in comparison to all my agitation. 

Maybe Yugyeom should call him the marble prince because of his heart of stone, because as I cried and screamed and he just kept silent.

The dark-haired boy and black eyes approached us, panting. And all I wanted was to grab him by the neck. I hate him. 

“You filthy son of a bitch!” I scream, hitting the man hard, in his face and everywhere. “Didn't your mother teach you to stay away from other people's things?” I crying, trying to grab him by the arm. The warm arms are wrapped around my waist and all my weight goes up when he pulls me off the floor and pushes me away from the boy. “Let me go Mark, let me go your fucker!”

“Stop that Youngjae, stop.”

“Why should I?” 

“Because I love him!” he yells back. 

And people die. Of love. People can die of love. I die.

Mark’s arms tighten with more force around me and I guess I'm not the only one to find out about those words, because the dark-haired boy looks as surprised as I do. Then I cry. 

I weep for the boy surprised to learn that he is loved, I cry for me who is forcing to hear it, who has just broken now. I cry because he don’t love me. 

“I'm sorry, Youngjae.” 

**Day 234**

**Mark Tuan’s pov**

I go down the stairs running and when I get to the car I feel all my muscles ache and the air hurts my lungs as they come out violently from me.

It was for me. His favorite poem, recited in that immense auditorium, so that all those people could hear about his love. The poem was for me. 

I knew this, I knew the instant his eyes found me and his beautiful smile told me about how much he liked to have me in his joyful life... Partly because he didn't know the truth, partly because he had made him believe that he would never leave him.

“Mark!” his voice calls me and even involuntarily, I put my hands in my eyes before I turn around. His smile breaks me in half. “What happened?” he asks, coming faster towards me. I nod a no’ cause I don’t want to talk about it. “Are you crying?” I shake my head, making him squint. “Stop lying to me! Geez, look at your-”

“I wasn't crying.” I say. His frightened eyes stare at me for a moment. “I swear, I wasn't crying okay? It's all good.” 

“Hm... Okay.” He smile but don’t giving up. I know he didn't believe me, but I also know that he would never pressure me into admitting something he didn't want to admit, and I appreciate it. His eyes set on mine. “So, did you talk to him?” 

I face the huge building behind us, and I feel my stomach ache a little. 

_Please, let's go back to talking about me crying or not._ I want to ask, in fact, I want to kneel so we can get back to the other subject and forget what had taken me to college on New Year's Eve, but his worried eyes simply prevent me from acting like a complete selfish.

He had wasted his whole day to be there with me, had been lacking in his work and had spent all his repertoire of advice, all he deserved in return was the truth. Or at least part of the truth. 

“Ah, I… Uh, I couldn’t talk him” It's the true. “He was so upset because we weren't going to spend the new year together, I just couldn't talk to him. I didn't want to spoil his parties like this. I tried, but... I couldn't do it.” It was a lie. I hadn't tried. I just made up an excuse and now I'm making another one.

“Jesus Christ, Mark. How long are you going to lie to the kid?!” 

“Jackson…” I whine looking at the overcast sky. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to talk about the boy I love — and that he doesn't even know that I love him — about how cowardly I’m to tell my boyfriend that I can't go on with him anymore, that I like someone else, and that I'm sorry that I let that happen. I just don't want to. “Can we talk about this some other time?” I ask, even though I know how selfish I am. He rolls his eyes and snorts at me. “Please.”

“You need to tell him, Mark” Jackson Wang, who had suddenly become my friend, inquires, coming to me and leaning against the car. “It's not fair to be with someone you don't love, especially if that someone loves you and you're wasting her time with a feeling that's not reciprocal. I mean, from what you've told me, he's a good guy and even without knowing him I know he doesn't deserve what you’re doing, Mark.” Jackson say, leaning his shoulder on mine. It's not that I think Youngjae deserves to be cheated or anything like that, I just don't agree that I have to tell him something that even I'm not sure about. I can't play all those months out because of the damn flower garden where one day there was just the emptiness. “And you have to tell the guy that you like it once and for all, because otherwise it's going to be a big shit.” he mumbles, pushing me with his shoulder. “Go, get in there and call him.”

“Do you want to go to a party with me?!” I ignore all his words and angry expression. Jackson separates his lips. I've known him a short time, but I know enough to know that his cries would echo through the immense parking lot at any moment. I raise my hand. “I just need one day, Jackson, just one day. I need to get my head in order, I need to think about things right, whether or not I want to give up a stable relationship to jump head on it...” I bring my saliva. That's the truth. I really need some time. I need some time to think, to be away from Youngjae and their smiles that hurt me, to be with the dark-haired guy for a moment without having all those people known to remind me that I have a boyfriend who loves me. I need some time. He crosses his arms. “Please Jackson, it's just one night. I need to have a night out of my life to make sure of certain things…” I implore moving away from the car, and standing facing him. “We can go to that party, which you commented on the other day, from your friend... Jooheon?! I don't know what he’s name but we can go and enjoy it. And I can get out of my little world for a moment and-” 

“You can't keep running away forever, Mark” Jackson grumbles, interrupting me. “but I understand you. In life, we make choices that we sometimes regret and since you're always surrounded by people and things that remind you of him, I understand that you need a little time out of your life to understand what you're really feeling. As someone who's been in a similar situation, I really understand why you want to do this, but I need to be honest with you, because you're my friend and I don't want to see you suffer any more than you're already suffering through this whole story...” he sighs, passing hands on us them dark. "My friend". I squeeze my fingers around the soft cloth of my trousers. “If you realize you can live and be happy away from him, you need to be prepared for what it will mean for both of you. You're not in this relationship alone and you're not the only one who's going to get hurt from this, so... I hope you take the time to get ready, because you're going to have to put up with it for two... Maybe for three, if the other kid doesn't feel the same way about you.” if before my heart didn't hurt, now it was hurting. I hadn't stopped to think about it... I hadn't stopped to think about the fact that he might not like me, that he might not want me like I wanted him to. I face the ground. 

“So...” 

“So let's go to this damn party.” Jackson Wang sighs, picking up his phone and giving me that look that says "If you come with me I can't talk to him after this party, I literally kill you".

I would spend a whole night away from Seoul, away from college and the people who reminded me of the cute smile boy... I would spend a night away from Choi Youngjae, my boyfriend, to be near Jackson Wang, the dark-haired guy who made flowers grow inside of me. 

[...]

If my parents could warn me about how treacherous their feelings are in their abrupt changes, they would have warned me. They would have put me in they lap when I was a child, and they would have said "son, take care of your heart, because one day it can show you love but it may not be the love that will fill you completely and you will be empty until suddenly, when you least expect it, the flowers will sprout back into you and everything will go crazy and upside-down... And people will get hurt, because that is life of those who decide to love, she is strange with their stories of love and the heart is too stupid to prepare for a love at first sight, unlike the tales that your mother used to tell you”.

I'm sure if they knew, they would have warned me, and I would have had a chance to do it differently. I'd have a chance to survive.

“C'mon, man… ” one of Jooheon's friends, friend of Jackson, inquires in my ear, making me come back to reality. “Admit it once and for all.” I shake a strong no. “You want to fuck him, don't you?” his loud, drunken voice asks me. “I mean, who doesn't, right?” the platinum-haired boy with blue tips smiles, pointing to the dance floor, where Jackson dances with some of his friends. I feel my stomach ache, and my head is throbbing because of your smile. “So I don't blame you for drying the guy out like that, just... Just admit that you want it before someone else does it, and you come home with the uncertainty of _what if I had gotten up off that table and walked up to him on that dance floor like I wanted?_ "

I turn to face him, surprised, because it was exactly what I was thinking. 

“I don’t want to fuck him!” I lie, moving away from his grip. “I have a boyfriend” my stomach hurts, but it's not a lie. “So watch what you say man.”

“Have a boyfriend never stop anyone to fuck a guy like Jackson.” he say in a whisper. “And I’m just saying what I see” he smiles at me. “and well, it doesn't look like you have a boyfriend when you look at him so” his smile opens even more and I bring my saliva. “Needy. So you better decide who you're going to be tonight, man, because look at you, you've already got someone watching your prey.” 

“What?” I looking for the black-haired man and the encounter exactly where he had left it before, on the dance floor, however, accompanied. 

“And then... Are you going to take the courage or are you going to keep hiding behind that boyfriend that doesn't seem to mean anything when you look at him?” 

All my muscles ache, my knees look like gelatin and my breath hurts in a desperate way when I approach him and his smile grows even more when his eyes find mine. And I know, at that moment I know, my parents would have warned me about how the human body reacts to being close to the person they love, how their hands sound and their throats dry, how everything seems to rotate and how the heart stop beating for a while. They would have warned me that all I needed to do was to grab that person who made my heart shoot and not let it escape ever again. 

They would have warned me about Jackson Wang.

The boy, who until then was in a conversation full of smiles with the boy in front of me, faces me ugly and whispers something in the ear of Jooheon, who laughs.

“Ignore them...” Jackson say too close to my ear. I find his eyes and his smile. We were in the middle of the club, his body was standing a few inches from mine and his hands were still on my shoulders. He looks so small, so precious, so beautiful. “Mark hyung?” his laughter wakes me up. “Do you want to dance?”

A few hours ago, he was in front of me like now, his hands weren’t on my shoulders and his smile did not seem to know more than his mouth let slip. He wasn’t sweaty, with his clothes sticking to his body, and his face wasn’t bathed by those red and purple lights, but still, his voice sounded sexy in my thoughts, as if he had always sounded like a damn forbidden fruit. And you have to tell the guy that you like it once and for all...

I put my hand up to his neck, my fingers don't take long to get lost in the damp hairs on his nape, and his hot skin doesn't take long to water against my grip. I can hear him moaning in surprise. That's what I want. I want him. 

“I want to fuck you.” I whisper, more like a confirmation to what his smart eyes have told me all that time. “I've wanted to fuck you since the day you forced me to watch you lick that ice cream.” I admit, squeezing my hand around his hip, bringing his body closer. “You know that right?” I kiss his earlobe and I need to tighten my arm around his waist even more, because his body seems to be fragile for a moment. I want him completely. He dark eyes, he beautiful brown hair, funny laugh, fun personality, he fluffy way of acting, he sharp tongue and he sensitive heart, he way to loving the world. I want even his jealous and possessive way. I wanted him from the first time and he knew that. And I thing he wanted me too. 

So, yes. I'm a fucker who has a wonderful boyfriend, but who needs to feel whole with that warm feeling that's born in my chest every time I see Jackson Wang's smile, because I want him. I want to hear his moans, I want to see him go crazy about the colored lights, I want his smell against my skin. I want to make him feel what I've been feeling all these weeks. I just want it. 

“Hyung…” he cry out.”

“I want you. So want me back.” 

**Day 800**

**Choi Youngjae’s pov**

Someone once told me that life’s complicated, that people are complicated. That we hurt ourselves more times than we'd like, because that's the way it is. That someone told me that the human being is strange, that he can’t live alone for a long time, that some of them can’t be with the same person for a long time, that some are so blinded by the need to feel something, to be part of something, of making other happy people who just can't see certain things.

Mark Tuan is part of that group. He wasn’t one of those who couldn’t live alone, in fact, he always combined well with loneliness and silence. 

It was sad. 

At first I thought it was sad that someone so beautiful, so peaceful and smiling would be well alone, that it would be okay to be forgotten by all the people around him. 

I remember that when things were still in their places, he told me that he didn't care too much about people’s presence in his life, that he preferred to be alone — partly because he didn't need to talk. Partly because he had become accustomed to loneliness. And that was sad. At first it was what I thought at first, which was very sad. 

Now, 800 days after our first day together I think the saddest thing wasn’t the fact that he was alone, but rather the fact that he was lost, because Mark Tuan was part of the group of people blinded by the smiles that they could create in the other’s lives. He was blind because I was happy, and that was sad. It was very sad.

Jaebum says it's not my fault. Yugyeom and Chaewon agree with him. They say I couldn’t imagine what was going on in Mark’s head, that everything is he’s fault, for not having had enough courage to go on alone until his true love appeared in his life. Until the garden grew inside him. 

Maybe it was really his fault — for letting me in, for believing he could love me as I loved him, for hiding the emptiness in his chest — and maybe it was my fault, because I was the one who said the first hello, I was the one who invited him to play video games. I was the one who fell in love first, and who made him try to fall in love.

“Youngjae-ssi?” the man in front of me calls my name, putting his warm, soft hand on mine. His smile sways me from one side to the other. “Are you okay? 

“Ne!” I nod, staring at our hands. 

“Okay, so...” he nod back, squeezing his fingers over mine. “Youngjae...” his voice seems to be intimate to my ears when he smiles when he calls my name. “I can call you that, can't I?” Jackson questions and I fell so sorry. I'd like to hate him. I would like to hurt his beautiful face so that no one else was stolen by him, I would love to feel all that anger I felt the first time I saw him. But I can't. Not when his hand is over mine in such a delicate and gentle way, not while his smile conveys an infectious joy and his eyes emanate sincerity. I just can't hate him. “Do you remember the last time we met? You said you had something to ask me, you still want to ask?”

“Yes.” I talk too loud, loud enough for the receptionist to look at us. He laughs. “I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous...” I admit. “I don't know where to start and-”v “Yes Youngjae, I'm sorry for everything that happened.” Jackson Wang say without losing his smile. I raise my eyes. “I mean, I'm not sorry to have met him, if that's what you want to know. If that's what you need to know. I'm not sorry for that, because I love him. So, no, I'm not sorry I met him.” His eyes move away from mine for an instant, and he smiles at the little girl absorbed in her ice cream at the next table. “It was funny.” “ What?” I ask, turning to look at him. A yellow light and strong invades little ice cream store, releasing a beautiful luster in the profile of the man in front of me. The warm feeling in my chest spreads slowly closer to my heart. 

“Everything.” — Jackson mumble, finally staring at me with her beautiful dark eyes. What? “It's funny that you, of all people in the world, has given me something so precious as Mark.” he sighs, lowering his eyes. “That's funny and sad. I can’t regret to have known him, but regrets the way things happened. I still remember that day at the festival and if I could go back in time-”

“You wouldn't have sex with her boyfriend?!”

“Anyeo Youngjae-ssi!” Jackson laughs without grace. “I would have sex with him, because it was what I wanted, since the day we met at the record store.” his honest made me sick for a moment. “But I would have waited until you understand that he was no longer _your_ boyfriend.” — I can’t breathe. “I know I'm being rude, but it's just how things were. He wasn't your boyfriend Youngjae and deep down you know that, right? You are just pretending everything was fine while.” Jackson shrugs, his fingers do circles in the table. He sighs. “And for that I'm sorry, because I know it hurts. Believe me, I know how it hurts.” I don't need to be looking at him to know how his expression looks like, because his tone says it all. 

“Why?” I question, without realizing it. “Why did this happen?!” he look at me. “I wasn't enough? Not happy, wasn't it? I was the problem?” 

“What? No Youngjae.” Jackson’s voice was so honest that this creeps me out. “It has nothing to do with be enough or make someone happy. The human being is used to believe that when you're with somebody, it all comes down to how much you can make that person happy. But that's not all, not limited just to make someone else happy.” he say to me. “Has to do with how much we can love ourselves before try to love someone, Youngjae-ssi. He don’t love himself in the past. But if you want to blame someone, blame life for not preparing enough for the roller coaster of life. Blame our DNA or some mysterious force that drives every being to put the wrong people as priorities while still don't even know what we want for our lives.” 

“But something more matter, right? The void in his chest, his lack of joy compared to the size of my matter” I hiccup. “The fact that he can't pretend to love, this matter to me and you…” I bite my lips. “You matter to him, right?”

“It’s the same to you. He loves you, so you matter to him too, Youngjae. Don’t you see that?” Jackson smiles. “Look, life is complicated. People don't always stay forever in our lives and our hearts are hurt more often than we could imagine, but this is normal. It may be cliché, but it's falling we learn. He fell down many times to figure out that he needed to learn to love himself first, the hole in his chest mattered’ cause this show him that make you happy it wasn't his job.” my heart aches. Not because Jackson is being rude, but because he was right and because that I feel like I knew him a long time. And that hurts so much. “It wasn't his job, just like it wasn't your job make him happy, and when he realized, well ... I was too rooted in the structure he had created. Because believe me, it takes strength to hurt someone you love because you want to be happy.” 

“When you say this like that it’s almost look simple.” I say without looking at him. “But it’s not, right? ‘Cause love someone that don’t love you back hurt. That hurt me, Jackson. Do you understand me? He hurt me because he love you.” 

“No. He didn't love me. He found me, because he started to love himself first, and then things began to change and he began to change. But it wasn't love. Because love is born from 1 hour to another, he needs time to exist within each one. And without self-love no one can love another person, so he doesn't love me the way that you think.” 

Silence. 

The beautiful and familiar silence. 

The one I heard while I loved someone more than myself. The silence made me more than deaf, made me early.

The silence that seemed so much with Mark Tuan I loved and who loved me.

“Jackson…”

“Uh?”

“He’s happy?”

“And you?”

Silence. “I think so…”

Jackson smile at me. 

“Can I say you something?” I nod to him. “He loves you.” My heart stop. “He loves the sound for your voice before go to bed. Aimee too.” He giggle happily. “I know he loves your smile, your perfume, your laughter. He really loves you, Choi Youngjae, the boy how tell him about true love and friendship. How sat by his side in a long silence, because this Youngjae is the most beautiful person in his world. Because you love him all the cost.” 

I don't know why somebody creates the courage to say that your husband loves someone else or the bug before I go to bed, but I think this type of person deserves respect. Jackson deserves respect for having managed to break my heart, because without the pieces inside of me I wouldn't have done what I did and wouldn't have got where I am. 

He deserves respect for having loved and been loved, have smiled at me and for letting me smile at him. Because in spite of everything, I understood. I understand why Mark loved him and why I didn't hate him, understand why the world had chosen us to participate in that sad and cheerful plot of love lost and love found. I simply understood.

“Yeah… I love me too.” 

**Day 2675**

Passion. Passion which makes the heart beat faster, which makes the hands sweat, which dilate pupils and cause involuntary smiles. Passion is always the answer, it is also always the problem to be solved at one time or another in our lives. 

When two people fall in love their brains suffer chemical transformations, there are explosions in their bodies that carry dopamine through their veins, that pump their hearts and rise to a euphoria stage. It's like a drug, you addictive and next thing you know, it's too late, is painful and too stifling. That's the passion.

People in love believe they live happily ever after, that nothing more important, as long as someone is smiling, they continue believing that everything is eternal. But when the drug disappears in human body, all that remains is sure to be in love with someone before even being in love with yourself. It's complicated. 

And that's what the drug starts going, it is being in love isn’t enough, when the sensation isn’t the same as the first time and everything seems to be color, that's when our hearts are broken, and boyfriends and girlfriends discover that have holes in their chest that doesn't may be filled by the happiness that they cause in their partners. That's when they realize that's not enough, we need more. They deserve more than that.

So the passion ends, hearts are broken, some holes are filled by people already existed and some day at the taxi station they met new lovers. 

The passion, the smiles, the happiness caused the other, everything ends. That leaves a flower garden on the other and a broken heart in thousands and thousands of pieces. Everything becomes gray. 

But unlike what we learn, unlike movies and sad songs about terrible endings drizzled passion, gray doesn’t remain forever. Everything heal with time.

At first, I thought the time would never cure the feeling numb in my chest, I could never smile again because the pretty boy of blond hair didn't love me anymore. I believed that people heard my heart crying even after my death, that no one else could make me feel love again. I was wrong. 

Time passed, the tears have been decreasing gradually, the laughs were replacing slowly, the emptiness in my chest was slowly filled in by love, love, love. Love. 

Now, 2675 days after the first day I saw him, playing basketball behind the huge blue building on that hot day, almost 2294 days after his eyes in tears have given me goodbye, I really okay. I'm finally in one piece. And I love myself for that. 

“Jinyoungie” I call removing his headphones. “Listen to this music…” say, by tightening my headphones against his ears. He squeezes his eyes shut, which makes small wrinkles from forming, and shakes his head. “Cool, isn't it?”

“Ne!” Park Jinyoung, had driven to the first step of my healing, shakes his head before I have my headphones. “You should buy, so we play at the party later.” He suggests. “I think that combines with Jaebum's proposal.”

“Was exactly what I thought! — I say happy, knocking on his shoulders. “Minds connected bro.” 

“Aish, don't start that crap bro thing.” Jinyoung complains, rolling his eyes, what makes me laugh. I move my shoulders , and despite being with an ugly face. 

If someone had told me that one day I would be on my old favorite record shop, where in a different life I spent mornings and afternoons played the halls with the man he loved, where once I found the dark-haired boy who took him from me, happy and smiling to be choosing the perfect song for my best friend ask his girlfriend to marry him, after having my heart ripped out of my chest and have believed that I would never feel he hit the right way again, I would have cried to sad. Because back then, when it all boiled down to the effect of the withdrawal of love in my system. 

But lucky I was happy because Jinyoung was right, because time had done his job, because I had learned to love me.

“Youngjae-ya!” Kim Chaewon” sweet voice conjunction with the music in my ears, and I turn around to watch her run of Yugyeom’s dirty hands. 

I'm fine now. Thanks to my best friends at the time that brought smiles back. Thanks to discovery I made about myself, that I love and that makes me complete. 

It took some time for me to understand what had happened that day, cold at the ice cream store, with Jackson Wang and his niece Aimee. 

My understanding is this: life is hard for everyone. It wasn't my broken heart which made it worse for me, it wasn't the fact of being the only one with tears in his eyes that made me be the only one suffering in all that storm. I understand that Mark Tuan didn't love Jackson Wang first, that he was not guilty for not loving me altogether. It wasn't his job love me as I love him just because I was hoping so. 

I understood that he didn't stop loving me. It wasn't the kind of love that I wished one day, was not the same love that one day I had given him, it was a love that did hear my old recordings when things were going badly and he needed to feel warm. It was the kind of love that was left of a special person, the kind of love that makes you smile when you remember the good times. It was the kind of love that I felt for him now.

Like that, I realized that I needed to love me first. And that decision, loving me instead to get over a broken heart with someone else, to wait my time and live a day after another, took me to that point in the record store, with my three friends — a running behind the other as noisy children. 

The music that echoes inside the shop is still in my ears, and I'm close to the door ajar, your echo looks dull.

I hear my friends laughter behind me, and their voices remembering how Chaewon cried out to because Yugyeom scared he. I listen to the life I have, the life that I love and that completes me, while I see the life that had one day smile at me. 

Life is so beautiful. 

_Sunlight comes creeping in_

Illuminates our skin

We watched the day go by

Stories of what we did

It made me think of you

It made me think of you

[…]

When the door closes behind the last person to go through it, the music in the air is dissipated, leaving only the sound of laughter and my happy heart in my chest. 

Nod to my past, smiling, waving back, and tells me a thousand things silent.

“Youngjae!” Chaewon’s bubbly voice calls me, and I sigh, happy. “Let's go home, it's too cold and I need to keep me warm.” my best friend claims, making me laugh. 

The first day I saw him, I wished that our lives were linked forever. He was playing basketball, shirtless, in silence behind the blue building. He looked like a work of art.

The last time I saw him, he was screaming he loved another. And incredibly, Mark Tuan was still looking like a work of art, but this time, carved in chaos.

Our story began with his quiet smile, with his peaceful aura, his brown eyes and his beautiful blonde hair on a warm morning earlier this year of 2013. Later, it was him and me in opposite directions, I in front of the old store of disk that used to go, he heading towards his new home. 

We weren't together, I didn't love him like he’s the only good thing in my life, and he’ve had the black hole in his chest. But we were happy. In the end, it was me and him, and our new lives, his beautiful smile reflected in my, his aura stirred in a violent crash against mine, he’s brown eyes, and black hair, beautiful as the color of the night. 

Mark gives a nod to me.

That was the last time I saw him for the first time.

I turn around, smiling at the life I have grace to have. Smile for the love I feel in my chest, that completes me and balance me. I smile at the person I still love.

“Come on your fuckers” I yell. My friends laugh. I fucking love everything. “ Let's go home.” 

So in the end were you and I, my friends that don't see him because they wasn't looking for you in the crowd, the little boy with your surname holding in your hand, our lives, our past. 

In the end were you, Mark Tuan, and I, Choi Youngjae and our present.

And our fucking happy present.

_So goodbye._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... yeah, i really end with this gosh hahah   
> hm so I'm really grateful for the comments, I didn't expect someone to read this because this fanfic was thought to myself, I decided to publish it in eng because I wanted a way to practice my writing and grammar (i'm a fucker cause my grammar is like cow shit) and I ended up meeting people who told me nice things and helped me and felt things for this little bit of me. Thanks. Really, thank you very much.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you didn't get a lot of headaches trying to decipher my eng hahaha, again I didn't have help to correct.


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